Socialism as it is; a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movement

LIBRARY^

UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO ,

Carleton H. Parker

SOCIALISM AS IT IS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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SOCIALISM AS IT IS

A SURVEY OF THE WORLD-WIDE
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

Nefo If crfc

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912

All rightt reserved

COPTMGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 191*.

Norfcootr

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

ERRATA

Preface, page V, 6th line from bottom : for or read of.
Introduction, page X, 20th line: for either read neither.

COPTSIOHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 191*.

Norton ots

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Oo.
Norwood, MMS., U.S.A.

PREFACE

THE only Socialism of interest to practical persons is the
Socialism of the organized Socialist movement. Yet the public
cannot be expected to believe what an organization says about
its own character or aims. It is to be rightly understood only
through its acts. Fortunately the Socialists' acts are articu-
late ; every party decision of practical importance has been
reached after long and earnest discussion in party congresses
and press. And wherever the party's position has become
of practical import to those outside the movement, it has been
subjected to a destructive criticism that has forced Socialists
from explanations that were sometimes imaginary or theoreti-
cal to a clear recognition and frank statement of their true
position. To know and understand Socialism as it is, we must
lay aside both the claims of Socialists and the attacks of their
opponents and confine ourselves to the concrete activities of
Socialist organizations, the grounds on which their decisions
have been reached, and the reasons by which they are ulti-
mately defended.

Writers on Socialism, as a rule, have either left their state-
ments of the Socialist position unsupported, or have based them
exclusively on Socialist authorities, Marx, Engels, and Lasalle,
whose chief writings are now half a century old. The exist-
ence to-day of a well-developed movement, many-sided and
world-wide, makes it possible for a writer to rely neither
on his personal experience and opinion nor on the old and
familiar, if still little understood, theories. I have based my
account either on the acts of Socialist organizations and of
parties and governments with which they are in conflict,
or on those responsible declarations or representative states-
men, economists, writers, and editors which are not mere
theories, but the actual material of present-day polities, —
though among these living forces, it must be said, are to be
found also some of the teachings of the great Socialists of the
past.

Vi PREFACE

It will be noticed that the numerous quotations from So-
cialists and others are not given academically, in support of
the writer's conclusions, but with the purpose of reproducing
with the greatest possible accuracy the exact views of the
writer or speaker quoted. I am aware that accuracy is not
to be secured by quotation alone, but depends also on the
choice of the passages to be reproduced and the use made
of them. I have therefore striven conscientiously to give,
as far as space allows, the leading and central ideas of the
persons most frequently quoted, and not their more hasty,
extreme, and less representative expressions.

I have given approximately equal attention to the German,
British, and American situations, considerable but somewhat
less space to those of France and Australia, and only a few
pages to Italy and Belgium. This allotment of space corre-
sponds somewhat roughly to the relative importance of these
countries in the international movement. As my idea has
been not to describe, but to interpret, I have laid addi-
tional weight on the first five countries named, on the ground
that each has developed a distinct type of labor movement.
As I am concerned with national parties and labor organiza-
tions only as parts of the international movement, however, I
have avoided, wherever possible, all separate treatment and all
discussion of features that are to be found only in one country.

The book is divided into three parts ; the first deals with
the external environment out of which Socialism is growing
and by which it is being shaped, the second with the internal
struggles by which it is shaping and defining itself, the third
with the reaction of the movement on its environment. I
first differentiate Socialism from other movements that seem
to resemble it either in their phrases or their programs of
reform, then give an account of the movement from within,
without attempting to show unity where it does not exist,
or disguising the fact that some of its factions are essentially
anti-Socialist rather than Socialist, and finally, show how all
distinctively Socialist activities lead directly to a revolutionary
outcome.

I am indebted to numerous persons, Socialists and anti-
Socialists, who during the twelve years in which I have been
gathering material — in nearly all the countries mentioned —
have assisted me in my work. But I must make special men-
tion of the very careful reading of the whole manuscript by
Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, and of the numerous and vital changes
made at his suggestion.

CONTENTS

PREFACE v

INTRODUCTION iz

PART I
"STATE SOCIALISM" AND AFTER

CHAPTKB

I. THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM ..... 1

II. THE NEW CAPITALISM 16

III. THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM .... 32

IV. "STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR . . . .46
V. COMPULSORY ARBITRATION ....... 66

VL AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM" IN AUSTRALASIA . . 86

VII. "EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 97

VIII. THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM . . . .108

PART II
THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISM

I. "STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT . . . 117

II. "REFORMISM" IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND BELGIUM . . 131

III. "LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 146

IV. "REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES .... 176
V. REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 210

VI. REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 231

VII. THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 248

vii

viii CONTENTS

PART III
SOCIALISM IN ACTION

I. SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" .... 276

II. THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES AND THE LAND QUESTION . 300

III. SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS" .... 324

IV. SOCIALISM AND LABOR UNIONS ...... 334

V. SYNDICALISM ; SOCIALISM THROUGH DIRECT ACTION OF

LABOR UNIONS ........ 354

VI. THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 387

VII. REVOLUTION IN DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT . . 401

VIII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 416

IX. THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 426

437
447

INTRODUCTION

THE only possible definition of Socialism is the Socialist
movement. Karl Marx wrote in 1875 at the time of the Gotha
Convention, where the present German party was founded,
that "every step of the real movement is of more importance
than a dozen programs," while Wilhelm Liebknecht said,
"Marx is dear to me, but the party is dearer." (1) What
was this movement that the great theorist put above theory
and his leading disciple valued above his master ?

What Marx and Liebknecht had in mind was a social class
which they saw springing up all over the world with common
characteristics and common problems — a class which they
felt must and would be organized into a movement to gain
control of society. Fifty years before it had been nothing,
and they had seen it in their lifetime coming to preponderate
numerically in Great Britain as it was sure to preponderate
in other countries ; and it seemed only a question of time
before the practically propertyless employees of modern in-
dustry would dominate the world and build up a new society.
This class would be politically and economically organized,
and when its organization and numbers were sufficient it
would take governments out of the hands of the old aristo-
cratic and plutocratic rulers and transform them into the
instruments of a new civilization. This is what Marx and
Liebknecht meant by the " party " and the " movement."

From the first the new class had been in conflict with em-
ployers and governments, and these struggles had been steadily
growing in scope and intensity. Marx was not so much inter-
ested in the immediate objects of such conflicts as in the
struggle itself. "The real fruit of their victory," he said,
" lies, not in immediate results, but in the ever expanding union
of the workers." (2) As the struggle evolved and became
better organized, it tended more and more definitely and irre-
sistibly towards a certain goal, whether the workers were yet
aware of it or not. If, therefore, we Socialists participate in

ix

X INTRODUCTION

the real struggles of politics, Marx said of himself and his
associates (in 1844, at the very outset of his career), "we
expose new principles to the world out of the principles of the
world itself. . . . We only explain to it the real object for
which it struggles." (3)

But the public still fails, in spite of the phenomenal and
continued growth of the Socialist movement in all modern
countries, to grasp the first principle on which it is based.

" Socialism has many phases," says a typical editorial in the
Independent. " It is a political party, an economic creed, a reli-
gion, and a stage of history. It is world-wide, vigorous, and
growing. No man can tell what its future will be. Its philos-
ophy is being studied by the greatest minds of the world, and
it deserves study because it promises a better, a safer, and a
fairer life to the masses. But as yet it is only a theory, a
hypothesis. It has never been tried in toto. ... It has suc-
ceeded only where it has allied itself with liberal and oppor-
tunist rather than radical policies." (4)

As the Socialist movement has nowhere achieved political
power, obviously it can either claim political success or be
accused of political failure. Nor does this fact leave Socialism
as a mere theory, in view of its admitted and highly significant
success in organizing and educating the masses in many coun-
tries and animating them with the purpose of controlling in-
dustry and government.

Mr. John Graham Brooks, in the Atlantic Monthly, gives us
another equally typical variation of the same fundamental
misunderstanding. " Never a theory of social reconstruction
was spun in the gray mists of the mind," says Mr. Brooks,
"that was not profoundly modified when applied to life.
Socialism as a theory is already touching life at a hundred
points, and among many peoples — Socialism has been a faith.
It is slowly becoming scientific, in a sense and to the extent
that it submits its claims to the comparative tests of experi-
ence." (5)

Undoubtedly Socialist theories have been spun both within
and without the movement, and to many Socialism has been
a faith. But neither faith nor theory has had much to do
with the great reality that is now overshadowing all others
in the public mind ; namely, the existence of a Socialist move-
ment. The Socialism of this movement has never consisted
in ready-made formulas which were later subjected to "the
comparative test of experience " ; it has always grown out
of the experience of the movement in the first instance.

INTRODUCTION xi

Another typical article, in Collier's Weekly, admits that
Socialism is now a movement. But as the writer, like so many
others, conceives of Socialism as having been, in its inception,
a "theory," a "doctrine" promoted by "Utopian dreaming,"
" incendiary rhetoric," an " anti-civic jargon," he naturally
views it with little real sympathy and understanding even
in its present form. The same Socialism that was accused
of all this narrowness is suddenly and completely transformed
into a movement of such breadth that it has neither a new
message nor even a separate existence.

"It is merely a new offshoot of a very old faith indeed," we
are now told, " the ideal of the altruistic dreamers of all ages,
an awakened sense of brotherhood in men. Stripped of all
its husks, Socialism stands for no other aim than that. All
its other teachings, the public ownership of the land, for
example, the nationalization of the means of production and
distribution, the economic emancipation of woman, have only
program values, as they lead to that one end. Whether, so
stripped, it ceases to be Socialism and becomes merely the
advance guard of the world-wide liberal movement is not, of
course, a question of more than academic interest." (6)

The moment it can no longer be denied that Socialism is
a movement, it is at once confused with other movements to
which it is fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed. Surely
this is no mere mental error, but a deep-seated and irrepres-
sible aversion to what is to many a disagreeable truth, — the
rapid growth and development, in many countries, of political
parties and labor organizations more and more seriously de-
termined to annihilate the power of private property over
industry and government.

The radical misconceptions above quoted, almost universal
where Socialism is still young, are by no means confined to
non-Socialists. Many writers who are supposed, in some
degree at least, to voice the movement, are as guilty as those
who wholly repudiate it. "Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance,
says that Socialism is a " system of ideas," and that " Social-
ism and the Socialist movement are two different things." (7)
If Socialism is indeed no more than a "growing realization
of constructive needs in every man's mind," and if every man
is more or less a Socialist, then there is certainly no need for
that antagonism to employers and property owners of which
Mr. Wells complains.

Mr. Wells himself gives the true Socialist standpoint when
he goes on to write that political parties must be held together

xii INTRODUCTION

" by interests and habits, not ideas." " Every party," he con-
tinues, " stands essentially for the interests and mental usages
of some definite class or group of classes in the existing com-
munity. . . . No class will abolish itself, materially alter its
way or life, or drastically reconstruct itself, albeit no class
is indisposed to cooperate in the unlimited socialization of any
other class. In that capacity of aggression upon the other
classes lies the essential driving force of modern affairs." (8)

The habits and interests of a large and growing part of the
population in every modern country are developing a capacity
for effective aggression against the class which controls in-
dustry and government. As this class will not socialize or
abolish itself, the rest of the people, Socialists predict, will
undertake the task. And the abolition of capitalism, they
believe, will be a social revolution the like of which mankind
has hitherto neither known nor been able to imagine.

SOCIALISM AS IT IS

PART I

''STATE SOCIALISM" AND AFTER

\

CHAPTER I
THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM

ONLY that statesman, writer, or sociologist has the hearing
of the public to-day who can bind all his proposed reforms
together into some large and far-sighted plan.

Mr. Roosevelt, in this new spirit, has spoken of the " social
reorganization of the United States," while an article in one
of the first numbers of La Follette's Weekly protested against
any program of reform " which fails to deal with society as
a whole, which proposes to remedy certain abuses but ad-
mits its incapacity to reach and remove the roots of the
other perhaps more glaring social disorders."

Some of those who have best expressed the need of a
general and complete social reorganization have done so in the
name of Socialism. Mr. J. R. MacDonald, recently chairman
of the British Labour Party, for example writes that the
problem set up by the Socialists is that of " co-ordinating
the forces making for a reconstruction of society and of giv-
ing them rational coherence and unity," (1) while the organ
of the middle-class Socialists of England says that their
purpose is " to compel legislators to organize industry." (2)

Indeed, the necessity and practicability of an orderly and
systematic reorganization in industrial society has been the
central idea of British Socialists from the beginning, while
they have been its chief exponents in the international
Socialist movement. But the idea is equally widespread out-
side of Socialist circles. It will be hard for British Socialists
to lay an exclusive claim to this conception when comrades of
such international prominence as Edward Bernstein, who
holds the British view of Socialism, assert that Socialism
itself is nothing more than " organizing Liberalism." (3)

Whether Socialists were the first to promote the new
political philosophy or not, it is undeniable that the Radicals

2 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and Liberals of Great Britain and other countries have now
taken it up and are making it their own. Mr. Winston
Churchill, while Chairman of the Board of Trade, and Mr.
Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, members of the
British Cabinet, leaders of the Liberal Party, recognize that
the movement among governments towards a conscious
reorganization of industry is general and demands that Great
Britain should keep up with other countries.

"Look at our neighbor and friendly rival, Germany,"
said Mr. Churchill recently. "I see that great State or-
ganized for peace and organized for war, to a degree to
which we cannot pretend. ... A more scientific, a more
elaborate, a more comprehensive social organization is
indispensable to our country if we are to surmount the tri-
als and stresses which the future years will bring. It
is this organization that the policy of the Budget will
create." (4)

Advanced and radical reformers of the new type all over
the world, those who put forward a general plan of reform
and wish to go to the common roots of our social evils, de-
mand, first of all, reorganization. But how is such a reor-
ganization to be worked out? The general programs have
in every country many features in common. To see what
this common basis is, let us look at the generalizations of
some of the leading reformers.

One of the most scientific and "constructive" is Mr. Sid-
ney Webb. No one has so thoroughly mastered the history
of trade unionism, and no one has done more to promote
"municipal Socialism" in England, both in theory and in
practice, for he has been one of the leaders of the energetic
and progressive London County council from the beginning
of the present reform period. He has also been one of the
chief organizers of the more or less Socialistic Fabian Society,
which' has done more towards popularizing social reform in
England than any other single educative force, besides send-
ing into all the corners of the world a new and rounded
theory of social reform — the work for the most part of
Sidney Webb, Bernard Shaw, and a few others.

Mr. Webb has given us several excellent phrases which
will aid us to sum up the typical social reformers' philosophy
in a few words. He insists that what every country requires,
and especially Great Britain, is to center its attention on the
promotion of the "national efficiency." This refers largely

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 3

to securing a businesslike and economic administration of
the existing government functions. But it requires also
that all the industries and economic activities of the country
should be considered the business of the nation, that the
industrial functions of the government should be extended,
and that, even from the business point of view, the chief
purpose of government should be to supervise economic
development.

To bring about the maximum of efficiency in production
would require, in Mr. Webb's opinion and that of the over-
whelming majority of reformers everywhere, a vast ex-
tension of government activities, including not only the
nationalization and municipalization of many industries and
services, but also that the individual workman or citizen be
dealt with as the chief business asset of the nation and that
wholesale public expenditures be entered into to develop his
value. Mr. Webb does not think that this policy is neces-
sarily Socialistic, for, as he very wisely remarks, "the nec-
essary basis of society, whether the superstructure be col-
lectivist or individualist, is the same."

Mr. Wells in his "New Worlds for Old" also claims that
the new policy of having the State do everything that can
promote industrial efficiency (which, unlike Mr. Webb, he
persists in calling Socialism) is to the interest of the business
man.

"And 'does the honest and capable business man stand to lose or
gain by the coming of such a Socialist government?" he asks.
" I submit that on the whole he stands to gain. . . .

"Under Socialist government such as is quite possible in Eng-
land at the present time : —

"He will be restricted from methods of production and sale that
are socially mischievous.

"He will pay higher wages.

"He will pay a large proportion of his rent-rate outgoings to the
State and Municipality, and less to the landlord. Ultimately he
will pay it all to the State or Municipality, and as a voter help to
determine how it shall be spent, and the landlord will become a
government stockholder. Practically he will get his rent returned
to him in public service.

"He will speedily begin to get better-educated, better-fed, and
better-trained workers, so that he will get money value for the
higher wages he pays.

"He will get a regular, safe, cheap supply of power and material.
He will get cheaper and more efficient internal and external transit.

4 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"He will be under an organized scientific State, which will natu-
rally pursue a vigorous scientific collective policy in support of the
national trade.

"He will be less of an adventurer and more of a citizen." (5)

Mr. Churchill while denying any sympathy for Socialism,
as both he and the majority of Socialists understand it,
frankly avows himself a collect! vist. "The whole tendency
of civilization," he says, "is towards the multiplication of
the collective functions of society. The ever growing com-
plications of civilizations create for us new services which
have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an
expansion of the existing services. There is a growing feeling,
which I entirely share, against allowing those services which
are in the nature of monopolies to pass into private hands.
[Mr. Churchill has expressed the regret that the railways
are not in the hands of the State.] There is a pretty steady
determination, which I am convinced will become effective
in the present Parliament to intercept all future unearned
increment, which may arise from the increase in the specu-
lative value of the land." (6) (Italics mine.)

Mr. Churchill's declared intention ultimately "to inter-
cept all future unearned increment" of the land is certainly
a tremendous step towards collectivism, as it would ulti-
mately involve the nationalization of perhaps a third of
the total wealth of society. With railways and monopolies
of all kinds also in government hands, a very large part
of the industrial capital of the country would be owned by
.the State, and, though all agricultural capital, and there-
fore the larger part of the total, remained in private hands,
we are certainly justified in calling such a state of society
capitalist collectivism.

But not one of the elements of this collectivism is a novelty.
Railroads are owned by governments in most countries,
and monopolies often are. The partial appropriation of
the "unearned increment" is by no means new, since a
similar policy is being adopted in Germany at the present
moment, and is favored not by the radicals alone, but by
the most conservative forces in the country; namely, the
party of landed Prussian nobility. Count Posadovsky, a
former minister, has written a pamphlet in which he urges
that the State should buy up the land in and about the cities,
and also that it should fix a definite limit beyond which land
values must not rise. Nearly all the chief cities of Prussia,

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 5

more than a hundred, are enforcing such a tax in a moderate
form, and the conservatives in the Reichstag proposed that
the national government should be given a right to tax in
the same field. Their bill was enacted, and, in the second half
of 1911, the German government, it was estimated, would
raise over $3,000,000 by this tax, and in 1912 it is expected
to give $5,000,000. This tax, which is collected when land
changes hands by sale or exchanges, rises gradually to 30
per cent when the increase has been 290 per cent or more.
Of course this scale is likely to be still further raised and
to be made more steep as the tax becomes more and more
popular.

Mr. Churchill's defense of the new policy of the British
government is as significant as the new laws it has enacted : —

"You may say that unearned increment of the land," he says,
"is on all-fours with the profit gathered by one of those American
speculators who engineer a corner in corn, or meat, or cotton, or
some other vital commodity, and that the unearned increment in
land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the
service but to the disservice done. It is monopoly which is the key-
note ; and where monopoly prevails, the greater the injury to society
the greater the reward of the monopolist will be. ...

" Every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is
only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream
off for himself, and everywhere to-day the man, or the public body,
who wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a prelim-
inary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an in-
ferior use, and in some cases to no use at all. . . . If there is a rise
in wages, rents are able to move forward because the workers can afford
to pay a little more. If the opening of a new railway or a new tram-
way, or the institution of an improved service of workmen's trains,
or the lowering of fares, or a new invention, or any other public
convenience affords a benefit to the workers in any particular dis-
trict, it becomes easier for them to live, and therefore the landlord
and the ground landlord, one on top of the other, are able to charge
them more for the privilege of living there." (Italics mine.) (7)

But we cannot believe that the government of Great
Britain, which draws so much of its support from the wealthy
free trade merchants and manufacturers has been persuaded
to adopt this new principle so much by the argument that a
land rent weighs on the working classes, though it is true
that the manufacturer may have to pay for this in higher
money wages, as it has by that other argument of Mr.
Churchill's that it weighs directly on business.

6 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"The manufacturer proposing to start a new industry," he says,
"proposing to erect a great factory offering employment to thousands
of hands, is made to pay such a price for his land that the purchase
price hangs around the neck of his whole business, hampering his
competitive power in every market, clogging far more than any
foreign tariff in his export competition ; and the land values strike
down through the profits of the manufacturer on to the wages of the
workman. The railway company wishing to build a new line finds
that the price of land which yesterday was only rated at its agri-
cultural value has risen to a prohibitive figure the moment it was
known that the new line was projected; and either the railway is
not built, or, if it is, it is built only on terms which largely transfer
to the landowner the profits which are due to shareholders and the
privileges which should have accrued to the traveling public." (My
italics.) (8)

No doubt Mr. Churchill's failure to mention shippers was
inadvertent.

It was a practical application of these business principles
and chiefly in the interest of the employers, manufacturers,
investors, and shippers, that the State decided, as a first
step, to take 20 per cent of all the increase in land values
from the present date and to levy an annual tax of one fifth of
one per cent on all land held for speculation, i.e. used neither
for agricultural nor for industrial nor building purposes.

The collectivist policy, that governments should undertake
to reorganize industry and to develop the industrial efficiency
of the population, is a relatively new one, however, and where
non-Socialist Liberals and Radicals are adopting it, they do
so as a rule with apologies. For while such reforms can be
considered as investments which in the long run repay not
only the community as a whole, but also the business inter-
ests, they involve a considerable initial cost, even beyond
what can be raised by the gradual expropriation of city land
rents, and the question at once arises as to who is to pay the
rest of the bill. The supporter of the new reforms answers
that the business interests should do so, since the develop-
ment of industry, which is the object of this expenditure,
is more profitable to them than to other classes. While Mr.
Churchill declares that Liberalism attacks landlordism and
monopoly only, and not capital itself, as Socialism does, he
is at great pains to show that the cost of the elaborate pro-
gram of social reform is borne not by monopolist alone, but
by that larger section of the business interests vaguely
known as those possessing "Special Privileges." In dis-

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 7

tributing the new taxes in the House of Commons, the ques-
tion to be asked of each class of wealth is, he says, "By
what process was it got?" and a distinction is to be made,
not between monopoly and competitive business, but "be-
tween wealth which is the fruit of productive enterprise and
industry or of individual skill, and wealth which represents
the capture by individuals of socially created values." (9)

"A special burden," says Mr. Churchill, "is to be laid upon
certain forms of wealth which are clearly social in their origin
and have not at any point been derived from a useful or
productive process on the part of their possessors." (10)
And since all income "derived from dividends, rent, or inter-
est," is, according to Mr. Churchill, unearned increment, it
is evident that nearly every business, all being beneficiaries,
ought to share the burden of the new reforms. (11) At the
same time he hastens to reassure his wealthy supporters,
especially among merchants and shippers, on grounds ex-
plained below by Mr. Lloyd George that the new taxes will
not rise faster than the new profits they will bring in, that they
"will not appreciably affect, have not appreciably affected,
the comfort, the status, or even the style of living of any
class in the United Kingdom." (12)

Mr. Lloyd George in proposing the so-called Socialistic
Budget of 1910 reminded the representatives of the propertied
interests [he might have added "in proportion to their
wealth"] that the State, in which they all owned a share,
should not be looked upon so narrowly as a capitalistic
enterprise. They could afford to allow the State to wait
longer for its returns.

"A State can and ought to take a longer and a wider view of its
investments," said Mr. Lloyd George, "than individuals. The re-
settlement of deserted and impoverished parts of its own territories
may not bring to its coffers a direct return which would reimburse
it fully for its expenditure ; but the indirect enrichment of its re-
sources more than compensate it for any apparent and immediate
loss. The individual can rarely afford to wait ; a State can ; the
individual must judge of the success of his enterprise by the testi-
mony given for it by his bank book ; a State keeps many ledgers,
not all in ink, and when we wish to judge of the advantage derived by
a country from a costly experiment, we must examine all those books
before we venture to pronounce judgment. . . .

"We want to do more in the way of developing the resources of
our own country. . . .

"The State can help by instruction, by experiment, by organiza-

8 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

tion, by direction, and even, in certain cases which are outside the
legitimate sphere of individual enterprise, by incurring direct re-
sponsibility. I doubt whether there is a great industrial country
in the world which spends less money on work directly connected
with the development of its resources than we do. Take, if you like,
and purely as an illustration, one industry alone, — agriculture, — •
of all industries the most important for the permanent well-being
of any land. Examine the budgets of foreign lands, — we have the
advantage in other directions, — but examine and compare them
with our own, and Honorable .Members will be rather ashamed at
the contrasts between the wise and lavish generosity of countries
much poorer than ours and the short-sighted and niggardly parsi-
mony with which we dole out small sums of money for the encour-
agement of agriculture in our country. . . .

"We are not getting out of the land anything like what it is
capable of endowing us with. Of the enormous quantity of agri-
cultural and dairy produce, and fruit, and the timber imported into
this country, a considerable portion could be raised on our own
lands." (13)

The proposed industrial advance is to be secured largely
at the expense of capital, but for its ultimate profit. The
capitalists are to pay the initial cost. Mr. Lloyd George
is very careful to remind them that even if the present in-
come tax were doubled, five years of the phenomenal yet
steady growth of the income of the rich and well-to-do
who pay this tax, would leave them as well off as they were
before. He proposes to leave the total capital in private
hands intact on the pretext that it is needed as "an available
reserve for national emergencies." And as an evidence of
this he refused to increase the existing rate of inheritance
tax levied against the very largest estates (15 per cent on
estates of more than £3,000,000). Though up to this point
he graduated this tax more steeply than before, and nothing
could be more widely popular than a special attack on such
colossal estates, Mr. Lloyd George draws the line at 15 per
cent, on the ground that a large part of the income from such
estates goes into investments, and more confiscatory legis-
lation might seriously affect the normal increase of the capital
and "the available reserves of taxation" of the country. (14)

Mr. Lloyd George does not fail to guarantee to capital
as a whole, "honest capital," that it will suffer no loss from
his reforms. "I am not one of those who advocate confis-
cation," he said several years ago, "and at any rate as far
as I am concerned honest capital, capital put in honest indus-

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 9

tries for the development of the industry, the trade, the
commerce, of this country will have nothing to fear from any
proposal I shall ever be responsible for submitting to the
Parliament of this realm." (My italics.) (15)

Mr. Lloyd George is well justified, then, in ridiculing the
idea that he is waging war against industry or property or
trying to destroy riches. He not only disproves this accusa-
tion by pointing to the capitalist character of his collectivist
program, but boasts that the richest men in the House of
Commons are on the Liberal side, together with hundreds of
thousands of the men who are building up trade and business.

And the attitude of the Radicals of the present British
government is the same as that of capitalist collectivists
elsewhere. However certain vested interests may suffer,
there is nowhere any tendency to weaken capitalism as a
whole. Capitalism is to be the chief beneficiary of the new
movement.

There are many differences of opinion, however, as to the
ultimate effect of the collectivist program. In Great Britain,
which gives us our best illustration, there are Liberals who
claim that it is Socialistic and others who deny that it has
anything to do with Socialism; Conservatives who accept
part of the program, and others who reject the whole as being
Socialistic ; Socialists, who claim that their ideas have been
incorporated in the last two Budgets, and other Socialists
who deny that either had anything in common with their
principles.

While it is certain that the present policy of the British
government is by no means directed against the power or
interests of the capitalist class as a whole, and in no way re-
sembles that of the Socialists, were not Socialist arguments
used to support the government's position, and may not
these lead towards a Socialist policy ?

Certainly some of the principles laid down seem at first
sight to have been Socialistic enough. For example, when
Mr. Churchill said that incomes from dividends, rent, and
interest are unearned, or when Mr. Lloyd George cried out:
"Who is responsible for the scheme of things whereby one
man is engaged through life in grinding labor to win a bare
and precarious subsistence for himself, and when, at the
end of his days, he claims at the hands of the community
he served, a poor pension of eight pence a day, he can only
get it through a revolution, and another man who does not

10 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

toil receives every hour of the day, every hour of the night,
whilst he slumbers, more than his poor neighbor receives
in a whole year of toil? Where did the table of that law
come from? Whose fingers inscribed it?" (16)

Lord Rosebery has pointed to the extremely radical nature
of Mr. Lloyd George's arguments. The representatives of
the Government had urged, he said, that the land should be
taxed without mercy : —

" (1) because its existence is not due to the owner;

" (2) because it is limited in quantity;

" (3) because it owes nothing of its value to anything the
owner does or spends;

"(4) because it is absolutely necessary for existence and
production." (17)

Lord Rosebery says, justly, that all these propositions
except the last apply to many other forms of property than
land, as, for instance, to government bonds, and that it
certainly would be Socialism to attempt to confiscate these
by taxation.

Lord Rosebery's task would have become even easier later,
when Mr. Lloyd George enlarged his attack on the landlords
definitely into an attack against the idle upper classes, who
with their dependents he reckoned at two million persons.
He accused this class of constituting an intolerable burden
on the community, said that its existence was the symptom
of the disease of society, and that only bold remedies could
help. The whole class of inactive capitalists he viewed as
a load both on the noncapitalist, wage-earning, salaried and
professional classes, and on the active capitalists. Mr. Lloyd
George argues with his capitalist supporters that capitalism
will be all the stronger when freed from its parasites. But
Lord Rosebery could answer that the active could no more
be distinguished from the passive capitalists than land-owners
from bondholders.

An article in the world's leading Socialist newspaper,
Vorwaerts, of Berlin, shows that many Socialists even regarded
these speeches as revolutionary : —

"The Radical wing of the British Liberals," it said, "is leading
the attack with ideal recklessness and lust of battle. It is conduct-
ing the agitation in language which in Germany is customarily used
only by a 'red revolutionist.' If the German Junker (landlord
conservative) were to read these speeches, he would swear that they
were delivered by the Social Democrats of the reddest dye, so fero-

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 11

ciously do they contrast between the rich and the poor. They appeal
to the passion of the people ; they exploit social distinctions in the
manner best calculated to fire popular anger against the Lords.

"In the heart of battle the Liberals are employing language which
at other times t» ey would have considered twice. Their words will
some day be assuredly turned against them, when more than the
mere Budget or the existence of the Lords is at stake. When the
Liberals, allied with the conservative enemy of to-day, are fighting
the working classes, the Socialists will recall this language as proof
that the Liberals themselves recognize the injustice of the existing
order.

"Mr. Lloyd George made such a speech at Newcastle that the
seeds he is planting may first bring forth Liberal fruit, but there can
be no doubt that Socialism will eventually reap the harvest. His
arguments must arouse the workingmen, and when they have
accustomed themselves to look at things from this standpoint it is
certain that once standing before the safes of the industrial capitalists
they will never close their eyes."

It is perhaps true that the Socialists will at some future
day reap the harvest from Mr. Lloyd George's and Mr.
Churchill's campaigns, though a careful analysis of the expres-
sions of these statesmen will show that they have said nothing
and done nothing in contradiction to their State-capitalistic
or "State Socialist" standpoint.

There is no doubt that the principle of the new taxes and
the new expenditure these statesmen are introducing is
radical, and that it marks a great stride towards a collectivist
form of capitalism. Let us assume that development con-
tinues along the lines of their present policies. In a very few
years the increased expenditure on social reform will be
greater than the increased expenditure on army and navy,
and the increase of direct and graduated taxes that fall on
the upper classes will be greater than that of the indirect
taxes that fall on the masses. We will assume even that
military expenditure and indirect taxes on articles the work-
ing people consume will begin some day to decrease, while
graduated taxes directed against the very wealthy and social
reform expenditures rise until they quite overshadow them.
There is every reason to believe that the social reformers of
the British and other governments hope for such an outcome
and expect it. This would be in no way inconsistent with
their policy of subordinating everything, to use one of their
expressions, to "that trade and commerce which constitutes
the source of our wealth."

12 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

For the collectivist expenditures, intended to increase
the national product through governmental enterprises for
the promotion of industry, and for raising the industrial
efficiency of the workers, would be introduced gradually,
and would soon be accompanied by results which would show
that they paid financially. And finally, even if railways and
monopolies were nationalized and their profits as well as all
the future rise in land value went to the State to be used for
these purposes, as Mr. Churchill hopes, and even if a method
could be found by which a large part of the income of the
idle rich would be confiscated without touching the active
capital of the merchant and manufacturer, the position of the
latter classes, through this policy, might become still more
superior relatively to that of the masses than it is at present.
The industrial capitalists might even control a larger share
of the national income and exercise a still more powerful
influence over the State than they do to-day.

The classes that the more or less collectivist budgets of
1910 and 1911 actually do favor, those whose economic
and political power they actually do increase, are the small
and middle-sized capitalists and even the larger capitalists
other than landlords and monopolists. The great mass of
income taxpayers, business men, farmers, and the profes-
sional classes with incomes from about £200 to £3000
($1000 to $15,000) are given every encouragement, while
those with somewhat larger incomes are only slightly dis-
criminated against on the surface, in the incidence of the
taxes, and not at all when we inquire into the ways in which the
taxes are being expended. Certainly nothing is being done
that will "appreciably affect the status or style of living of
any class in the United Kingdom," or that will check materially
the enormous rise of this "upper middle" class both in wealth
and numbers — for the income tax payers have doubled
their income in a little more than a decade, until it has reached
the total of more than a billion pounds a year. And surely
no tendency could be more diametrically opposed to a Social-
ism whose purpose it is to improve the relative position of
the "lower middle" and working classes.

While the new reform programs of the various parties
are in general agreement in all countries, in that they are
all collectivist, and favor as a rule the same social classes,
there is much controversy as to names, whether they shall
be called Socialistic or merely radical or progressive. The
question is really immaterial.

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 13

"Capital, divested of its perversions, would be natural
Socialism," says one of Henry George's most prominent
disciples. (18) Whether the proposed reforming is done with
a purified and strengthened capitalism in view, or in the name
of "natural Socialism" or "State Socialism," the program
itself is in every practical aspect the same.

If a contrast formerly appeared to exist between "Individ-
ualist" and "State Socialist" reformers, it was never more
than a contrast in theory, quickly dispelled when the time
for action arrived. The individualist radical would have the
State do as little as possible, but still is compelled to resort
to an increase of its powers at every turn ; the "State Social-
ist" would have the State do as much as practicable, but
would still retain State action within the rigid limits imposed
by the need of gaining capitalist support and the desire for
immediate political success. In economic policy the Indi-
vidualist is for checking the excess of monopoly and special
privilege in order to allow "equal opportunity" or a free
development to whatever competition or "natural Capital-
ism" remains, while the "State Socialist" is more concerned
with protecting and promoting the natural checking of
the excesses of competitive capitalism and private property
that comes with "natural monopoly" and its regulation by
government. The "State Socialist," however critical he is
towards competition, recognizes that the first practical possi-
bility of putting an end to its excesses comes when monopoly
is already established, and when it is relatively easy for the
State to step in to nationalize or municipalize ; the Individu-
alist reformer who wishes to preserve competition where prac-
ticable, at the same time recognizes that it is impossible to do
so where monopolies have become firmly rooted in certain in-
dustries, and he also at this point proposes nationalization,
municipalization, or thoroughgoing governmental control.

Henry George himself recognizes that "State Socialism,"
which he called simply "Socialism," and the "natural Capi-
talism" he advocated, far from being contradictory, were
complementary and interdependent. Mr. Louis Post says : —

"Even in the economic chapters of 'Progress and Poverty' its
author saw the possibility of society's approaching the 'ideal of
Jeffersonian Democracy, the promised land of Herbert Spencer, the
abolition of government. But of government only as a directing
and repressive power.' At the same time and in the same degree
of approach, he regarded it as possible for society also to realize the
dream of Socialism." (19)

14 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The following passage leaves no doubt that Mr. Post is
correct, and at the same time shows in the clearest way how
the two policies of reform were interwoven in Henry George's
mind : —

"Government could take up itself the transmission of messages
by telegraph, as well as by mail, of building and operating railroads,
as well as of the opening and maintaining common roads. With
the present functions so simplified and reduced, functions such as
these could be assumed without danger or strain, and would be under
the supervision of public attention, which is now distracted. There
would be a great and increasing surplus revenue from the taxation of
land values for material progress, which would go on with great
accelerated rapidity, would tend constantly to increase rent. This
revenue arising from the common property would be applied to the
common benefit, as were the revenues of Sparta. We might not
establish public tables — they would be unnecessary, but we could
establish public baths, museums, libraries, gardens, lecture rooms,
music and dancing halls, theaters, universities, technical schools,
shooting galleries, playgrounds, gymnasiums, etc. Heat, light,
and motive power, as well as water, might be conducted through our
streets at public expense ; our roads be lined with fruit trees ; dis-
coveries and inventors rewarded, scientific investigation supported ;
in a thousand ways the public revenues made to foster efforts for the
public benefit. We should reach the ideal of the Socialist, but not
through government repression. Government would change its
character, and would become the administration of a great cooperative
society. It would become merely the agency by which the common prop-
erty was administered for the common benefit." (Italics mine.) (20)

But the "State Socialist" and the Individualist reformer,
who are often combined in one person, as in the case of Henry
George, differ sharply from Socialists of the Socialist move-
ment in aiming at a society, which, however widely govern-
ment action is to be extended, is after all to remain a society
of small capitalists.

Professor Edward A. Ross very aptly sums up the re-
former's objections to the anti-capitalist Socialists. Capital-
ism must be "divested of its perversions," the privately
owned monopolies and their political machines, primarily for
the purpose of strengthening it against Socialism. "In-
dividualism should make haste to clean the hull of the old
ship for the coming great battle with the opponents of private
capital ..." The reformers, as a rule, like Professor Ross,
consciously stand for a new form of private capitalism, to be
built up with the aid of the State. This is the avowed

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 15

attitude of the larger part of the "progressives," "radicals,"
and "insurgents" of the day.

The new reform programs, however radical, are aimed at
regenerating capitalism. The most radical of all, that of the
single taxers, who plan not only that the state shall be the
sole landlord, but that the railways and the mines shall be
nationalized and other public utilities municipalized, do
not deny that they want to put a new life into private capital-
ism, and to stimulate commercial competition in the remain-
ing fields of industry. Mr. Frederick C. Howe, for instance,
predicts a revival of capitalistic enterprise, after these meas-
ures are enacted, and even looks forward to the indefinite
continuation of the struggle between capital and labor. (22)

CHAPTER II

PRESIDENT TAFT says that if we cannot restore competition,
"we must proceed to State Socialism and vest the govern-
ment with power to control every business." As competition
cannot be revived in industries that have been reorganized
on a monopolistic basis, this is an admission that, in such
industries, there is no alternative to "State Socialism."

The smaller capitalists and business interests have not
yet reconciled themselves, any more than President Taft,
to what the Supreme Court, in the Standard Oil Case, called
"the inevitable operation of economic forces," and are just
beginning to see that the only way to protect the industries
•that remain on the competitive basis is to have the govern-
ment take charge of those that have already been monopo-
lized. But the situation in Panama and Alaska and the grow-
ing control over railroads and banks show that the United
States is being swept along in the world-wide tide towards
collectivism, and innumerable symptoms of change in public
opinion indicate that within a few years the smaller capital-
ists of the United States, like those of Germany and Great
Britain, will be working with the economic forces instead
of trying to work against them. Monopolies, they are begin-
ning to see, cannot be destroyed by private competition,
even when it is encouraged by the legislation and the courts,
and must be controlled by the government. But govern-
ment regulation is no lasting condition. If investors and con-
sumers are to be protected, wage earners will most certainly
be protected also — as Mr. Roosevelt advocates. And from
government control of wages, prices, and securities it is not
a long step to government ownership.

The actual disappearance of competition and the growing
harmony of all the business interests among themselves are
removing every motive for continued opposition to some form
of State control, — and even the more far-sighted of the
"Captains of Industry," like Judge Gary of the Steel Cor-

16

THE NEW CAPITALISM 17

poration and many others, are beginning to see how the new
policy and their own plans can be made to harmonize. The
"Interests" have only recently become sufficiently united,
however, to make a common political effort, and it is only
after mature deliberation that the more statesmanlike of the
capitalists are beginning to feel confident that they have
found a political plan that will succeed. As long as the
business world was itself fundamentally divided, small
capitalists against large, one industry against the other,
and even one establishment against another in the same
industry, it was impossible for the capitalists to secure any
united control over the government. The lack of organiza-
tion, the presence of competition at every point, made it im-
possible that they should agree upon anything but a negative
political policy.

But now that business is gradually becoming politically
as well as economically unified, government ownership and
the other projects of "State Socialism" are no longer opposed
on the ground that they must necessarily prove unprofitable
to capital. If their introduction is delayed, it is at the bottom
because they will require an enormous investment, and other
employments of capital are still more immediately profitable.
Machinery, land, and other material factors still demand
enormous outlays and give immediate returns, while invest-
ments in reforestation or in the improvement of laborers,
for example, only bring their maximum returns after a full
generation. But the semi-monopolistic capitalism of to-day
is far richer than was its competitive predecessor. It can
now afford to date a part of its expected returns many years
ahead. Already railroads have done this in building some
of their extensions. Nations have often done it, as in build-
ing a Panama Canal. And as capitalism becomes further
organized and gives more attention to government, and the
State takes up such functions as the capitalists direct, they
will double and multiply many fold their long-term govern-
mental investments — in the form of expenditures for indus-
trial activities and social reforms.

Already leading capitalists in this country as well as else-
where welcome the extension of government into the business
field. The control of the railroads by a special court over
which the railroads have a large influence proves to be just
what the railroads have wanted, while there is a growing belief
among them, to which their directors and officers occasionally

18 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

give expression, that the day may come, perhaps with the
competition of the Panama Canal, when it will be profitable
to sell out to the government — at a good, round figure, of
course, such as was recently paid for railroads in France and
Italy. Similarly the new wireless systems are leading to
a capitalistic demand for government purchase of the old
telegraph systems.

Mr. George W. Perkins, recently partner of Mr. J. P.
Morgan, foreshadows the new policy in another form when
he advocates a Supreme Court of Business (as a preventive
of Socialism) : —

"Federal legislation is feasible, and if we unite the work for it
now we may be able to secure it ; whereas, if we continue to fight
against it much longer, the incoming time may sweep the question
along either to government ownership or to Socialism [Mr. Per-
kins recognizes that they are two different things],

" I have long believed that we should have at Washington a busi-
ness court, to which our great problems would go for final adjust-
ment when they could not be settled otherwise. We now have at
Washington a Supreme Court, composed, of course, of lawyers only,
and it is the dream of every young man who enters law that he may
some day be called to the Supreme Court bench. Why not have
a similar goal for our business men? Why not have a court for
business questions, on which no man could sit who has not had
a business training with an honorable record? The supervision of
business by such a body of men, who had reached such a court in
such a way, would unquestionably be fair and equitable to business,
fair and equitable to the public." (Italics mine.)

Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Root are similarly inspired by
the quasi-partnership that exists between the government and
business in those countries where prices and wages in certain
monopolized industries are regulated for the general good of
the business interests. In the words of Mr. Root : —

" Germany, to a considerable extent, requires combination of
her manufacturers, producers, and commercial concerns. Japan
also practically does this. But in the United States it cannot be
done under government leadership, because the people do not
conceive it to be the government's function. It seems to be rather
that the government is largely taken up with breaking up or-
ganizations, and that reduces the industrial efficiency of the
country." (My italics.)

As the great interests become "integrated," i.e. more and
more interrelated and interdependent, the good of one be-

THE NEW CAPITALISM 19

comes the good of all, and the policy of utilizing and control-
ling, instead of opposing the new industrial activities of the
government, is bound to become general. The enlightened
element among the capitalists, composed of those who desire
a partnership rather than warfare with the government, will
soon represent the larger part of the business world.

Mr. Lincoln Steff ens reflects the views of many, however,
when he denies that the financial magnates are as yet guided
by this "enlightened selfishness," and says that they are only
just becoming "class-conscious," and it is true that they have
not yet worked out any elaborate policy of social reform or
government ownership. None but the most powerful are
yet able, even in their minds, to make the necessary sacrifices
of the capitalism of the present for that of the future. The
majority (as he says) still "undermine the law" instead of
more firmly intrenching themselves in the government, and
"corrupt the State" instead of installing friendly reform
administrations; they still "employ little children, and so
exhaust them that they are poor producers when they grow
up," instead of making them strong and healthy and teach-
ing them skill at their trades; they still "don't want all
the money they make, don't care for things they buy, and
don't all appreciate the power they possess and bestow."
But all these are passing characteristics. If it took less than
twenty years to build up the corporations until the present
community of interests almost forms a trust of trusts, how
long, we may ask, will it take the new magnates to learn to
"appreciate" their power? How long will it take them to
learn to enter into partnership with the government instead
of corrupting it from without, and to see that, if they don't
want to increase the wages and buying power of the workers,
"who, as consumers, are the market," the evident and easy
alternative is to learn new ways of spending their own sur-
plus ? The example of the Astors and the Vanderbilts on the
one hand, and Mr. Rockefeller's Benevolent Trust, on the
other, show that these ways are infinitely varied and easily
learned. Will it take the capitalists longer to learn to use
the government for their purposes rather than to abuse it ?

It is neither necessary nor desirable, from the standpoint of
an enlightened capitalism, that the control of government
should rest entirely in the hands of "Big Business," or the
"Interests." On the contrary, it is to the interest of capital
that all capitalists, and all business interests of any perma-

20 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

nence, should be given consideration, no matter how small
they may be. The smaller interests have often acted with
"Big Business," — under its leadership, but as industrial
activities and destinies are more and more transferred to
the political field, the smaller capitalist becomes rather a
junior partner than a mere follower. Consolidation and
industrial panics have taught him his lesson, and he is at
last beginning to organize and to demand his share of profits
at the only point where he has a chance to get it, i.e. through
the new "State Socialism." Moreover, he is going to have a
large measure of success, as the political situation in this
country and the actual experience of other countries show.
And in proportion as the relations between large and small
business become more cordial and better organized, they may
launch this government, within a few years, into the capitalist
undertakings so far-reaching and many-sided that the half
billion expended on the Panama Canal will be forgotten as
the small beginning of the new movement.

It is true that for the moment the stupendous wealth and
power of the "Large Interests," already more or less consoli-
dated, threaten to overwhelm the rest. Mr. Steffens does
not overstate when he says : —

"To state correctly in billions of dollars the actual value of all
the property represented in this community of interests, might
startle the imagination to some sense of the magnitude of the wealth
of these men. But money is no true measure of power. The total
capitalization of all they own would not bring home to us the in-
fluence of Morgan and his associates, direct and indirect, honest
and corrupt, over presidents and Congresses ; governors and legis-
lators ; in both political parties and over our political powers. And
no figures would remind us of their standing at the bar and in the
courts ; with the press, the pulpit, the colleges, schools, and in
society. And even if all their property and all their power could be
stated in exact terms, it would not show their relative wealth and
strength. We must not ask how much they have. We must ask
how much they haven't got." (1)

But over against this economic power the small capitalists,
farmers, shopkeepers, landlords, and small business men, have
a political power that is equally overwhelming. Until the
"trusts" came into being, no issue united this enormous
mass. Yet they are still capitalists, and what they want,
except the few who still dream of competing with the "trusts,"
is not to annihilate the latter's power, but to share it. The

THE NEW CAPITALISM 21

"trusts," on the other hand, are seeing that common action
with the small capitalists, costly as it may be economically,
may be made to pay enormously on the political field by
putting into the hands of their united forces all the powers
of governments.

If the principle of economic union and consolidation has
made the great capitalists so strong, what will be the result
of this political union of all capitalists ? How much greater
will be their power over government, courts, politics, the
press, the pulpit, and the schools and colleges !

It is not the "trusts" that society has to fear, nor the con-
solidation of the "trusts," but the organized action of all
"Interests," of "Big Business" and "Small Business," that is,
of Capitalism.

A moment's examination will show that there is every
reason to expect this outcome. Broadly considered, there
is no such disparity between large capitalists and small,
either in wealth and power, as at first appears. All the
accounts of the tendency towards monopoly have been
written, not in the name of non-capitalists, but in that of
small capitalists. Otherwise we might see that these two
forces, interwoven in interest at nearly every point, are also
well matched and likely to remain so. And we should see
also that it is inconceivable that they will long escape the
law of social evolution, stronger than ever to-day, toward
organization, integration, consolidation.

Messrs. Moody and Turner, for example, finished a well-
weighed study of the general tendencies of large capital in
this country with the following conclusion : —

"Through all these channels and hundreds more, the central
machine of capital extends its control over the United States. It
is not definitely organized in any way. But common interest
makes it one great unit — the 'System,' so called.

"It sits in Wall Street, a central power, directing the inevitable
drift of great industry toward monopoly. And as the industries
one after another come into it for control, it divides the wealth
created by them. To the producer, steady conditions of labor ;
to the investor, stable securities, sure of paying interest ; to the
maker of monopolies and their allies, the increment of wealth of the
continent, and with it the gathering control of all mechanical industry."
(2) (My italics.)

Certainly the fundamental social questions in any country
at any time are : Who gets the increment of wealth ? Who

22 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

controls industry? No objection can be taken to the facts
or reasoning of this and some of the other studies of the
"trusts" — as far as they go. What vitiates not only their
conclusions, but the whole work, is that written from the
standpoint of the small capitalists, they forget that the
"trusts" are only part of a larger whole.

The increment of wealth that has gone to large capital
in this country in the census period 1900-1910 is certainly
less than what has gone to small capital. Farm lands and
buildings have increased in value by $18,000,000,000, while
the increased wealth in farm animals, crops, and machinery
will bring the total far above $20,000,000,000. The increase
in city lands and houses other than owned homes, which has
not been less than that of the country in recent years, must
be reckoned at many billions, and these, like the farm lands,
are only to a small degree in the hands of the "Trusts."
Even allowing for the more modest insurance policies, and
savings bank accounts, as belonging in part to non-capitalists,
small capitalists have piled up many new billions within the
same decade, in the form of bank deposits, good-sized invest-
ments in insurance companies, in government, municipal,
and railway bonds, bank stock, and other securities. No
doubt the chief owners of the banks, railways, and "trusts"
have increased their wealth by several billions within the
same period, but this is only a fraction of the increased wealth
of the smaller capitalists. It is not true, then, that "the
increment of wealth of the continent" has gone to — "the
makers of monopolies and their allies."

Let us now examine the question of the control of industry
from this broader standpoint. It is admitted that the direct
control of the "Interests" extends only over "mechanical
industry" —not over agriculture. We have seen that it
does not extend over the mine of wealth that lies in city
lands, nor over large masses of capital more and more ade-
quately protected by the government. It might be said
that by their strategic position in industry the large capital-
ists control indirectly both agriculture, city growth, savings
banks and government. This would be true were it not for
the fact that as soon as we turn from the economic to the
political field we find that not only in this country, but also in
Europe nearly all the strategical positions are held by the
small capitalists. They outnumber the large capitalists and
their retainers ten to one, and they hold the political balance

THE NEW CAPITALISM 23

of power between these and the propertyless classes. The
control of industry and the control of government being in
the long run one and the same, the only course left to the
large capitalists is to compromise with the small, and the
common organization of centralized and decentralized cap-
ital with the aid and protection of government is assured.

The fact that, for the masses of mankind, capitalism is the
enemy, and not "Big Business," is then obscured by the war-
fare of the small capitalists against the large. Perhaps
nowhere in the world and at no time in history has this
conflict taken on a more definite or acute form than it has
recently in this country. So intense is the campaign of the
smaller interests, and it is being fought along such broad lines
that it often seems to be directed against capitalism itself.
The masses of the people, even of the working classes, in
America and Great Britain have yet no conception of the
real war against capitalism, as carried on by the Socialists of
Continental Europe, and it seems to them that this new small
capitalist radicalism amounts practically to the same thing.

The "Insurgents," it is true, differ fundamentally from the
Populists of ten and twenty years ago, in so far they under-
stand fully that in many fields competition cannot be re-
stored, that the large corporations cannot be dissolved into
small ones and must be regulated or owned by the govern-
ment, because they have deserted the Jeffersonian maxim
that "that government is best that governs least."

"With the growing complexity of our social and business
relations," says La Follette's Weekly, "a great extension of
governmental functions has been necessary. The authority
of State and nation reaches out in numberless and hitherto
unknown forms affecting and regulating our daily lives, our
occupations, our earning power, and our cost of living. The
need for this intervention, for collective action by the people
through their duly constituted government, to preserve and
promote their own welfare, is a need that is growing more
and more important and imperative to meet the rapidly
growing power of commerce, industry and finance, centralized
and organized in the hands of a few men."

This is nothing more nor less than the creed of capitalist
collectivism. The analysis of the present political situation
of the Insurgents is not only collectivist, but, in a sense,
revolutionary. After describing how "Big Business," con-
trols both industry and politics, La Follette says : —

24 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"This thing has gone on and on in city, State, and nation,
until to-day the paramount power in our land is not a Democ-
racy, not a Republic, but an Autocracy of centralized, sys-
temized, industrial and financial power. 'Government of
the people, by the people, and for the people ' has perished
from the earth in the United States of America."

An editorial in McClure's Magazine (July, 1911) draws a
similar picture and frankly applies the term, "State Social-
ism," to the great reforms that are pending : —

"Two great social organizations now confront each other in the
United States — political democracy and the corporation. Both
are yet new, — developments, in their present form, of the past two
hundred years, — and the laws of neither are understood. The
entire social and economic history of the world is now shaping itself
around the struggle for dominance between them. . . .

"The problem presented by this situation is the most difficult
that any modern nation has faced ; and the odds, up to the present
time, have all been with the corporations. Property settles by
economic law in strong hands ; it has unlimited rewards for service,
and the greatest power in the world — the power of food and drink,
life and death — over mankind. Corporate property in the last
twenty years has been welded into an instrument of almost infinite
power, concentrated in the hands of a very few and very able men.

"Sooner or later the so far unchecked tendency toward monop-
oly in the United States must be met squarely by the American
people. . . .

"The problem of the relation of the State and the corporation
is now the chief question of the world. In Europe the State is rel-
atively much stronger; in America, the corporation. In Europe
the movement towards Socialism — collective ownership and opera-
tion of the machinery of industry and transportation — is far on its
way; in America we are moving to control the corporation by
political instruments, such as State Boards and the Interstate Com-
merce Commission. . . .

"And if corporate centralization of power continues unchecked,
what is the next great popular agitation to be in this country ? For
State Socialism?"

When a treaty of peace is made between "Big Business" and
the smaller capitalists under such leadership as La Follette's,
we may be certain that it will not amount merely to a swal-
lowing up of the small fish by the large. The struggle
waged according to La Follette's principles is not a mere
bid for political power and the spoils of office, but a real polit-
ical warfare that can only end by recognition of the small

THE NEW CAPITALISM 25

capitalist's claims in business and politics — in so far as they
relate, not to the restoration of competition, but to govern-
ment ownership or control. As early as 1905, when governor
of Wisconsin, La Follette said : —

"It must always be borne in mind that the contest between
the State and the corporate powers is a lasting one. ... It
must always be remembered that their attitude throughout
is one of hostility to this legislation, and that if their relation
to the law after it is enacted is to be judged by the attitude
towards the Interstate Commerce Law, it will be one of
continued effort to destroy its efficiency and nullify its pro-
vision." Events have shown that he was right in his pre-
dictions, and his idea that the war against monopolies must
last until they are deprived of their dominant position in
politics is now widely accepted.

The leading demands of the small capitalists, in so far as
they are independently organized in this new movement,
are now for protection, as buyers, sellers, investors, borrowers,
and taxpayers against the "trusts," railways, and banks.
Formerly they invariably took up the cause of the capitalist
competitors and would-be competitors of the ""Interests" —
and millionaires and corporations of the second magnitude
were lined up politically with the small capitalists, as, for
example, silver mine owners, manufacturers who wanted
free raw material, cheaper food (with lower wages), and foreign
markets at any price, — from pseudo-reciprocity to war, — im-
porting merchants, competitors of the trusts, tobacco, beer,
and liquor interests bent on decreasing their taxes, etc.

The great novelty of the "Insurgent" movement is that,
in dissociating itself from Free Silver, Free Trade, and the
proposal to destroy the "trusts," it has succeeded in getting
rid of nearly all the "Interests" that have wrecked previous
small capitalist movements. At the same time, it has all
but abandoned the old demagogic talk about representing
the citizen as consumer against the citizen as producer. It
frankly avows its intention to protect the ultimate consumer,
not against small capitalist producers (e.g. its opposition to
Canadian reciprocity and cheaper food), but solely against
the monopolies. Indeed, the protection of the ultimate con-
sumer against monopolies is clearly made incidental to the
protection of the small capitalist consumer-producer. The
wage earner consumes few products of the Steel Trust, the
farmer and small manufacturers, many. Nor does the new

26 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

movement propose to destroy the "trusts" by free trade
even in the articles they produce, but merely to control
prices by lower tariffs. With the abandonment of the last
of the "Interests" and at the same time of the "consumers"
that they use as a cloak, the new movement promises for the
first time a fairly independent and lasting political organiza-
tion of the smaller capitalists.

While Senator La Follette is the leading general of the
new movement, either Ex-President Roosevelt or Governor
Woodrow Wilson seems destined to become its leading di-
plomatist. While Senator La Follette declares for a fight
to the finish, and shows that he knows how to lead and organize
such a fight, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson are giving their
attention largely to peace terms to be demanded of the enemy,
and the diplomatic attitude to be assumed in the negotiations.
Perhaps it is too early for such peaceful thoughts, and pre-
mature talk of this kind may eliminate these leaders as
negotiators satisfactory to the small capitalists. Their
interest for my present purpose is that they probably fore-
shadow the attitude that will finally be assumed when the
large "Interests" see that they must make terms.

Mr. Wilson's language is at times so conciliatory as to create
doubt whether or not he will stand with Senator La Follette
and the Republican "Insurgents" for the whole of the small
capitalist's program, but it leaves no doubt that, if he lives
up to his declared principles, he must aim at the government
regulation, not of "Big Business" merely, but of all business
— as when he says that "business is no longer in any sense
a private matter."

"We are dealing, in our present discussion," he said in an ad-
dress, delivered in December, 1910, "with business, and we are deal-
ing with life as an organic whole, and modern politics is an accom-
modation of these two. Suppose we define business as economic
service of society for private profit, and suppose we define politics
as the accommodation of all social forces, the forces of biisiness, of
course, included, to the common interest." (My italics.)

It is evident that if the community gains by an extended
control over business, that business gains at least as much by
its claim to be recognized as a public service. And this
Mr. Wilson makes very emphatic : —

"Business must be looked upon, not as the exploitation of society,
not as its use for private ends, but as its sober service ; and private

THE NEW CAPITALISM 27

profit must be regarded as legitimate only when it is in fact a reward
for what is veritably serviceable, — serviceable to interests which
are not single but common, as far as they go ; and politics must be the
discovery of this common interest, in order that the service may be
tested and exacted.

"In this acceptation, society is the senior partner in all business.
It first must be considered, — society as a whole, in its permanent
and essential, not merely in its temporary and superficial, interests.
// private profits are to be legitimatized, private fortunes made honor-
able, these great forces which play upon the modern field must, both
individually and collectively, be accommodated to a common pur-
pose." (My italics.)

Business is no longer "to be looked upon" as the exploita-
tion of society, private profits are to be "legitimatized" and
private fortunes "made honorable" — in a word, the whole
business world is to be regenerated and at the same time
rehabilitated. This is to be accomplished, as Mr. Wilson ex-
plained, in a later speech (April 13, 1911), not by excluding
the large capitalists from government, but by including the
small, and this will undoubtedly be the final outcome. He
said : —

"The men who understand the life of the country are the men who
are on the make, and not the men who are made ; because the men
who are on the make are in contact with the actual conditions of
struggle, and those are the conditions of life for the nation ; whereas,
the man who has achieved, who is at the head of a great body of
capital, has passed the period of struggle. He may sympathize
with the struggling men, but he is not one of them, and only those
who struggle can comprehend what the struggle is. I would rather
take the interpretation of our national life from the general body
of the people than from those who have made conspicuous successes
of their lives."

But the "Interests" are not to be excluded from the new
dispensation.

"I know a great many men," Mr. Wilson says further, "whose
names stand as synonyms of the unjust power of wealth and of
corporate privileges in this country, and I want to say to you that
if I understand the character of these men, many of them — most of
them — are just as honest and just as patriotic as I claim to be. But I
do notice this difference between myself and them ; I have not
happened to be immersed in the kind of business in which they have
been immersed ; I have not been saturated by the prepossessions
which come upon men situated as they are, and I claim to see some
things that they do not yet see ; that is the difference. It is not a

28 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

difference of interest ; it is not a difference of capacity; it is not a
difference of patriotism. It is a difference of perception. . . .

"Now, these men- have so buried their minds in these great un-
dertakings that you cannot expect them to have reasonable and
rational views about the antipodes. They are just as much chained
to a task, as if the task were little instead of big. Their view is just
as much limited as if their business were small instead of colossal.
But they are awakening. They are not all of them asleep, and when
they do wake, they are going to lend us the assistance of truly states-
manlike minds.

"We are not fighting property," Mr. Wilson continues, "but
the wrong conception of property. It seems to me that business on
the great scale upon which it is now conducted is the service of the
community, and the profit is legitimate only in proportion as the
service is genuine. I utterly deny the genuineness of any profit
which is gathered together without regard to the serviceability of
the thing done. . . . Men have got to learn that in a certain sense,
when they manage great corporations, they have assumed public office,
and are responsible to the community for the things they do. That
is the form of privilege that we are fighting." (Italics mine.) (3)

A second glance at these passages will show that Mr. Wilson
speaks in the name rather of struggling small capitalists,
business men "on the make," than of the nation as a whole.
His diplomacy is largely aimed to move the "honest" large
capitalists. These are assured that the only form of privi-
lege that Mr. Wilson, representing the smaller business men,
those "on the make," is attacking, is their freedom from politi-
cal and government control. But the large capitalists need
not fear such control, for they are assured that they them-
selves will be part of the new government. And as there is
no fundamental "difference of interests," the new govern-
ment will have no difficulty in representing large business as
well as small.

No better example could be found of the foreshadowed
treaty between the large interests and the whole body of
capitalists, and their coming consolidation, than the central
banking association project now before Congress. Originated
by the "Interests" it was again and again moderated to avoid
the hostility of the smaller capitalists, until progressives like
Mr. Wilson are evidently getting ready to propose still further
modifications that will make it entirely acceptable to the
latter class. Already Mr. Aldrich has consented that the
"State" banks, which represent chiefly the smaller capitalists,
should be included in the Reserve Association, and that the

THE NEW CAPITALISM 29

President should appoint its governor and deputy governor.
Doubtless Congress will insist on a still greater representa-
tion of the government on the central board.

Mr. Wilson emphasizes the need of action in this direction
in the name of "economic freedom," which can only mean
equal financial facilities and the indirect loan of the govern-
ment's credit to all capitalists, through means of a govern-
ment under their common control : —

"The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly.
So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual
energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial
nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is
concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activ-
ities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest
and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated
upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved,
and who necessarily by every reason of their own limitations, chill
and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the
greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address them-
selves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and
the true liberties of men." (My italics.)

Undoubtedly this is a great question; the establishment
of a political control over credit will mean a political and
financial revolution. For it will establish the power of the
government over our whole economic system and will lead
rapidly to a common political and economic organization
of all classes of capitalists for the control of the government,
to a compromise between the group of capitalists that now
rules the business world and that far larger group which is
bound to rule the government. The financial magnates
have seen this truth, and, as Mr. Paul Warburg said to the
American Association (New Orleans, Nov. 21, 1911), "Wall
Street, like many an absolute ruler in recent years, finds it
more conducive to safety and contentment to forego some of
its prerogatives . . . and to turn an oligarchy into a consti-
tutional democratic federation [i.e. a federation composed
of capitalists]."

Mr. Roosevelt has announced a policy with regard to
monopolies that foreshadows even more distinctly than any-
thing Mr. Woodrow Wilson has said the solution of the
differences between large and small capitalists. He urges
that a government commission should undertake "super-
vision, regulation, and control of these great corporations"

30 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

even to the point of controlling "monopoly prices" and
that this control should "indirectly or directly extend to
dealing with all questions connected with their treatment
of their employees, including the wages, the hours of labor,
and the like." (4)

This policy is in entire accord with the declarations of An-
drew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim, Judge Gary, Samuel
Untermeyer, Attorney-General Wickersham, and others of
the large capitalists or those who stand close to them. It is
in equal accord with the declarations of La Follette's Weekly
and the leading "Insurgent" writers.

It is true that the private monopolies, as Mr. Bryan
pointed out (New York Times, Nov. 19, 1911), "will soon be
in national politics more actively than now, for they will
feel it necessary to control Colonel Roosevelt's suggested
commission, and to do that they must control the election of
those who appoint the commission."

But the private monopolies will soon be more actively in
politics no matter what remedy is offered, even govern-
ment ownership. The small capitalist investors, shippers,
and consumers of trust products can only protect themselves
by securing control of the government, or at least sharing it
on equal terms with the large capitalists.

The reason that Mr. Roosevelt's proposal was hailed with
equal enthusiasm by the more far-sighted capitalists, whether
radical or conservative, small or large, was that they have an
approximately equal hope of controlling the government,
or sharing in its control. The unbiased observer can well
conclude that they are likely to divide this control between
them — and, indeed, that the complete victory of either
party is economically and politically unthinkable. Already
banks, railways, industrial "trusts," mining and lumber
interests, are being forced to follow a policy satisfactory to
small capitalist investors, borrowers, customers, furnishers
of raw material, and taxpayers — while small capitalist
competitors are being forced to abandon their effort to use
the government to restore competition and destroy the
"trusts."

In the reorganization of capitalism, the non-capitalists,
the wage and salary earning class are not to be consulted.
Taken together with those among the professional and
salaried class who are small investors or expect to become
independent producers, the small capitalists constitute a

THE NEW CAPITALISM 31

majority of the electorate (though not of the population),
or at least hold the political balance of power. It is capital-
ist interests alone that really count in present-day politics,
and it is for capitalists alone that government control would
be instituted.

Viewed in this light the statements of Mr. Woodrow Wilson
that "business is no longer hi any proper sense a private
matter," or that "our program, from which we cannot be
turned aside, is, that we are going to take possession of the
control of our own economic life," and the similar state-
ments of Mr. Roosevelt, are not so Socialistic as they seem.
What their use by the leading "conservative-progressive"
statesmen of both parties means is that a partnership of
capital and government is at hand.

CHAPTER III]

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

WE are told that the political issue as viewed by American
radicals is, "Shall property rule, or shall the people rule?"
and that the radicals may be forced entirely over to the
Socialist position, as the Republicans were forced to the posi-
tion of the Abolitionists when Lincoln signed the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker notes also
that capital is continually the aggressor, as were the slave-
holders, and that the conflict is likely to grow more and more
acute, since "no one imagines that these powerful men of
money will give up their advantage lightly" any more than
the old slaveholders did.

Another "insurgent" publicist ( Mr. William Allen White)
says that the aim of radicalism in the United States is "the
regulation and control of capital" and that the American
people have made up their minds that " capital, the product
of the many, is to be operated fundamentally for the benefit
of the many." It is one of those upheavals, he believes,
which come along once in a century or so, dethrone privilege,
organize the world along different lines, take the persons
"at the apex of the human pyramid" from their high seats
and "iron out the pyramid into a plane." (1)

If the aim of the "progressives" is the overthrow of "the
rule of property" as Mr. Baker claims — if, in the words
of Mr. White again, "America is joining the world movement
towards equal opportunity for all men in our modern civiliza-
tion," then indeed the greatest political and economic struggle
of history, the final conflict between capitalism and Social-
ism, is at hand.

But when we ask along what lines this great war for a
better society is to be waged, and by what methods, we are
told that the parties to the conflict are separated, not by prac-
tical economic interests, but by "ideas" and "ideals," and that
the chief means by which this social revolution is to be accom-
plished are direct legislation and the recall and their use to

32

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 33

extend government ownership or control so as gradually
to close one door after another upon the operations of capital
until its power for harm is annihilated, i.e. democracy and
collectivism. In other words, the militant phrases used by
Socialists in earnest are adopted by radicals as convenient
and popular battle cries in their campaign for "State Social-
ism," as to banking, railroads, mines, and a few industrial
"trusts," but without the slightest attempt either to end
the "rule of property" or to secure "equal opportunity"
for any but farmers and small business men. They do noth-
ing, moreover, to bring about the new political and class
alignment that is the very first requirement, if the rule of
property in all its forms is to be ended, or equal opportunity
secured for the lower as well as the comparatively well-to-do
middle classes.

Similarly the essential or practical difference between the
"Socialism" of Mr. Roosevelt's editorial associate, Dr.
Lyman Abbott, who acknowledges that classes exist and says
that capitalism must be abolished, and the Socialism of the
international movement is this, that Dr. Abbott expects
to work, on the whole, with the capitalists who are to be
done away with, while Socialists expect to work against
them.

Dr. Abbott claims that the "democratic Socialism" he advocates
is directly the opposite of "State Socialism . . . the doctrine of
Bismarck," that it "aims to abolish the distinction between possess-
ing and nonpossessing classes," that our present industrial institu-
tions are based on autocracy and inequality instead of liberty, democ-
racy, and equality, that under the wages system or capitalism, the
laborers or wage earners are practically unable to earn their daily
bread "except by permission of the capitalists who own the tools
by which the labor must be carried on." He then proceeds to what
would be regarded by many as a thoroughly Socialist conclusion :
"The real and radical remedy for the evils of capitalism is the or-
ganization of the industrial system in which the laborers or tool
users will themselves become the capitalists or tool owners; in
which, therefore, the class distinction which exists under capitalism
will be abolished." (2)

And what separates the advanced "State Socialism" of
Mr. Hearst's brilliant editor, Mr. Arthur Brisbane, from the
Socialism of the organized Socialist movement? Has not
Mr. Brisbane hinted repeatedly at a possible revolution in
the future? Has he not insisted that the crux of "the cost

34 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of living question" is not so much the control of prices by the
private ownership of necessities of life (as some "State
Socialist" reformers say, and even some official publications
of the Socialist Party) , as the exploitation of the worker at the
point of production, the fact that he does not get the full
product of his labor — phrases which might have been used
by Marx himself ?

The New York Evening Journal has even predicted an
increasing conflict of economic interests on the political
field — failing to state only that the people's fight must be
won by a class struggle, a movement directed against capital-
ism and excluding capitalists (except in such cases where they
have completely abandoned their financial interests).

Asked whether the influence of the Interests (the "trusts")
would increase or diminish in this country in the near future,
the Journal answered : —

"The influence of the interests, which means the power of the
trusts, or organized industry and commerce, will go forward steadily
without interruption.

" Just as steadily as early military feudalism advanced and grew,
UNTIL THE PEOPLE AT LAST CONTROLLED IT AND OWNED IT, JUST
so STEADILY WILL TO-DAY'S INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM advance and
grow without interruption UNTIL THE PEOPLE CONTROL IT and own
it.

" The trusts are destined to be infinitely more powerful than now,
infinitely more ably organized.

" And that will be a good thing in the long run for the people. The
trusts are the people's great teachers, proving that destructive,
selfish, unbrotherly competition is unnecessary.

" They are proving that the genius of man can free a nation or a
world. They are saying to the people: 'You work under our
ORDERS. One power can own and manage industry.'

" It is hard for individual ambition just now. But in time THE
PEOPLE WILL LEARN THE LESSON AND WILL SAY TO THE TRUST
OWNERS : —

; ' THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WE HAVE LEARNED THE LESSON.
WE SEE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE POWER TO OWN AND CON-
TROL ALL INDUSTRY, ALL MANUFACTURES, ALL COMMERCE, AND
WE, THE PEOPLE, WILL BE THAT ONE POWER.'

" Just as the individual feudal lords organized their little armies
in France, and just as the French people themselves have all the
armies in one — UNDER THE PEOPLE'S POWER — so the industries
organized Now by the barons of industrial feudalism, one by one,
will be taken and put together by the people, UNDER THE PEOPLE'S
OWNERSHIP. (3)

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 35

Yet we find the Journal, like all the vehicles and mouth-
pieces of radicalism, other than those of the Socialists, un-
ready to take the first step necessary in any conflict; namely,
to decide who is the enemy. Unless defended by definite
groups in the community, "the rule of property," could be
ended in a single election. Nor can the group that maintains
capitalist government consist, as radicals suggest, merely of
a handful of large capitalists, nor of these aided by certain
cohorts of hired political mercenaries — nor yet of these two
groups supported by the deceived and ignorant among the
masses. Unimportant elections may be fought with such
support, but not revolutionary " civil wars" or "the upheavals
of the centuries." In every historical instance such struggles
were supported on both sides by powerful, and at the same time
numerically important, social classes, acting on the solid basis of
economic interest.

Yet non-Socialist reformers persist in claiming that they
represent all classes with the exception of a handful of mo-
nopolists, the bought, and the ignorant; and many assert
flatly that their movement is altruistic, which can only mean
that they intend to bestow such benefits as they think proper
on some social class that they expect to remain powerless
to help itself. Here, then, in the attitude of non-Socialist
reformers towards various social classes, we begin to see the
inner structure of their movement. They do not propose
to attack any "vested interests" except those of the financial
magnates, and they expect the lower classes to remain politi-
cally impotent, which they as democrats, know means
that these classes are only going to receive such secondary
consideration as the interests of the other classes require.

Whether the radical of to-day, the "State Socialist,"
favors political democracy or not, depends on whether these
"passive beneficiaries" of the new "altruistic" system are in
a majority. If they are not in a majority, certain political
objects may be gained (without giving the non-capitalist
masses any real power) by allowing them all to vote, by re-
moving undemocratic constitutional restrictions, and by
introducing direct legislation, the recall, and similar measures.
If they are a majority, it is generally agreed that it is unsafe
to allow them an equal voice in government, as they almost
universally fail to rest satisfied with the benefits they secure
from collectivist capitalism and press on immediately to a
far more radical policy.

36 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

So in agricultural communities like New Zealand, Aus-
tralia, and some of our Western States, where there is a
prosperous property-holding majority, the most complete
political democracy has come to prevail. Judging every-
thing by local conditions, the progressive small capitalists
of our West sometimes even favor the extension of this
democracy to the nation and the whole world, as when the
Wisconsin legislature proposes direct legislation and the
recall in our national government. But they are being
warned against this "extremist" stand by conservative
progressive leaders of the industrial sections like Ex-President
Roosevelt or Governor Woodrow Wilson.

This latter type of progressive not only opposes the exten-
sion of radical democracy to districts like our South and
East, numerically dominated by agricultural or industrial
laborers, but often wants to restrict the ballot in those regions.
Professor E. A. Ross, for example, writes in La Follette's
Weekly that "no one ought to be given the ballot unless he
can give proof of ability to read and write the English lan-
guage," which would disqualify a large part, if not the major-
ity, of the working people in many industrial centers ; while
Dr. Abbott concluded a lengthy series of articles with the
suggestion that the Southern States have "set an example
which it would be well, if it were possible, for all the
States to follow."

"Many of them have adopted in their constitutions," Dr. Ab-
bott continues, "a qualified suffrage. The qualifications are not
the same in all the States, but there is not one of those States in
which every man, black or white, has not a legal right to vote, pro-
vided he can read and write the English language, owns three hun-
dred dollars' worth of property, and has paid his taxes. A provision
that no man should vote unless he has intelligence enough to read
and write, thrift enough to have laid up three hundred dollars'
worth of property, and patriotism enough to have paid his taxes,
would not be a bad provision for any State in the Union to incor-
porate in its constitution." (4)

Such a provision accompanied by the customary Southern
poll tax, which, Dr. Abbott overlooked (evidently inadvert-
ently), would add several million more white workingmen
to the millions (colored and white) that are already without
a vote, (a)

(a) In his enthusiasm for these undemocratic measures, Dr. Abbott has re-
trogressed more than the Southern States, which do not require both a prop-

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 37

We cannot wonder, then, that the working people, who are
enthusiastic supporters of every democratic reform, should
nevertheless distrust the democracy of the new movement.
It is generally supposed in the United States that the reason
the new "Insurgency" is weaker in the East than in the
West is because of the greater ignorance and political corrup-
tion of the masses of the great cities of the East. But when
we see the radicalism of the West also, as soon as it enters
the towns, tending to support the Socialists and Labor parties
rather than the reformers, we realize that the distrust has
no such local cause.

Perhaps the issue is more clearly seen in the hostility that
exists among the working people and the Socialists towards
the so-called commission plan of city government, which the
progressives unanimously regard as a sort of democratic
municipal panacea. The commission plan for cities vests
the whole local government in a board of half a dozen elected
officials subject to the initiative and referendum and recall.
The Socialists approve of the last feature. They object to
the commission and stand for the very opposite principle of
an executive subordinate to a legislature and without veto
power, because a board does not permit of minority represen-
tation, and because it allows most officials to be appointed
through "influence" instead of being elected. They object
also, of course, to the high percentages usually required for
the initiative and the recall. It is Socialist and Labor Union
opposition, and not merely that of political machines, that has
defeated the proposed plan in St. Louis, Jersey City, Hoboken,
and elsewhere, and promises to check it all over the country.
As a device for saving the taxpayer's money, the commission
plan in its usual form is ideal, as a means for securing the
benefits of the expenditure of this money to the non-propertied
or very small propertied classes, it is in its present form
worse in the long run than the present corruption and waste.
State legislatures and courts already protect the taxpayers
from any measure in the least Socialistic, whatever form of

erty and educational qualification, but only one of the two. Moreover, by the
"grandfather" and "understanding" clauses they seek to exempt as many
as possible of the whites, i.e. a majority of the population in most of these
States, from any substantial qualification whatever. Nor does it seem
likely that even in the future they will apply freely ; against the poor and
illiterate of the white race, the measures Dr. Abbott advocates. Just such
restricted suffrage laws were repealed in many Southern States from 1820
to 1850, and it is not Likely that the present reaction will go back that far.

38 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

local government and whatever party may prevail. It has
caused more than a little resentment among the property-
less that the taxpayers should actually have the effrontery
to propose the still more conservative commission plan as
being a radically democratic reform.

It is on such substantial grounds that the propertyless
distrust the democracy of the progressives and radicals.
They find it extends only to sections or districts where small
capitalist voters are in a majority. The "State Socialist"
and Reform attitude towards political democracy is indeed
essentially opportunistic. Not only does it vary from place
to place, but it also changes rapidly with events. As long
as the new movement is in its early stages, it deserves popu-
larity, owing to the fact that it brings immediate material
benefits to all and paves the way, either for capitalistic or
for Socialistic progress, robs capitalism of all fear of the
masses, and is ready to remove all undemocratic constitu-
tional barriers and to do everything it can to advance
popular government. These constitutional checks and bal-
ances prevent the small capitalists and their progressive
large capitalist allies from bringing to time the reactionaries
of the latter class, while they are so many that, in remov-
ing a few of them, there is little danger of that pure political
democracy which would alone give to the masses any
"dangerous" power. At a later stage, when "State Social-
ism" will have carried out its program, and the masses see
that it is ready to go only so far as the small capitalists'
interests allow and no farther, and when it will already have
forced recalcitrant large capitalists to terms, and so have
reunited the capitalist class, we may expect to see a
complete reversal of the present semi-democratic attitude.
But as long as the "State Socialist" program is still
largely ahead of us, the large capitalists not yet put in-
to their place, and full political democracy — in spite of
rapid progress — still far in the distance, a radical position
as to this, that, or the other piece of political machinery
signifies little. So many reforms of this kind are needed
before political democracy can become effective — and in
the meanwhile many things can happen that will give ample
excuse to any of the "progressive" classes that decide to
reverse their present more or less democratic attitude, such
as an "unpatriotic" attitude on the part of the masses, a
grave railroad strike, etc.

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 39

For there will be abundant time before democratic machin-
ery can reach that point in its evolution, when the non-
capitalist masses can make the first and smallest use of it
against their small and large capitalist masters. If, for
example, the Supreme Court of this country should ever
be made elective, or by any other means be shorn of its polit-
ical power, and if then the President's veto were abolished,
and others of his powers given to Congress, there would
remain still other alternatives for vetoing the execution of
the people's will — and one veto is sufficient for every practi-
cal purpose. Even if the senators are everywhere directly
elected, the Senate may still remain the permanent strong-
hold of capitalism unless overturned by a political revolu-
tion.

The one section of the Constitution that is not subject to
amendment is the allotment of two senators to each of the
States. And even if public opinion should decide that this
feature must be made changeable by ordinary amendment
like the rest, it might require 90 or even 95 per cent of the
people to pass such an amendment or to call a constitutional
convention for the purpose. For Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Vermont, Delaware, are not only governed by antiquated
and undemocratic constitutions, but are so small that whole-
sale bribery or a system of public doles is easily possible.
The constitutions of the mountain States are more modern,
but Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico, and others
of these States are so little populated as make them very easy
for capitalist manipulation, as present political conditions
show. Now if we add to these States the whole South, where
the upper third or at most the upper half of the population
is in firm control, through the disfranchisement of the
majority of the non-capitalistic classes (white and colored),
we see that, even if the country were swept by a tide of demo-
cratic opinion, it is most unlikely that it will ever control
the Senate. Moreover, if the capitalists (large and small)
are ever in danger of losing the Senate, they have only to
annex Mexico to add half a dozen or a dozen new States with
limited franchises and undemocratic constitutions.

Either the President, or the Senate, or the Supreme Court
might prove quite sufficient to prevent the execution of the
will of the people, in any important crisis — they would be
especially effective when revolutionary changes in property,
and rapid shifting of economic and political power into the

40 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

hands of the people, are at stake, as Socialists believe they
will be. But to resist such a movement, still another political
weapon is available, — even if President, Senate, and Supreme
Court fell into the hands of the people (and it is highly
probable that the small capitalists, who themselves suffer
under the above-mentioned constitutional limitations, will
force the larger capitalists to fall back on this other weapon
in the end), — namely, a limitation of the suffrage.

The property and educational qualifications for voting
which are directed against the colored people in the Southern
States are being used to a considerable degree, both North
and South, against the poorer whites. While there is no like-
lihood that this process will continue indefinitely, or that it
will spread to all parts of the country, it is already sufficient
to throw the balance of political power in favor of the capi-
talists in the national elections. If we put the total number
of voters in the country at 15,000,000, we can see how signifi-
cant is the fact that more than a million, black and white,
have already been directly disfranchised in the South alone.

In view of these numerous methods of thwarting democ-
racy in this country (and there are others) there is no reason
why the capitalists should not permit political leaders after
a time to accept a number of radical and even revolutionary
reforms in political methods. The direct election of senators,
though it was bitterly opposed a few years ago, is already
widely accepted ; the direct nomination of the President has
become the law in several States ; Mr. Roosevelt threatens
that the "entire system" may have to be changed, that con-
stitutions may be "thrown out of the window," and the
power of judges over legislation abolished, which, as he notes,
has already been advocated by the Socialist member of
Congress (5) ; the Wisconsin legislature formally calls for a
national constitutional convention and proposes to make the
constitution amendable henceforth by the "initiative";
Governor Woodrow Wilson suggests that many of our exist-
ing evils may be remedied by national constitutional amend-
ments (6), and two such amendments are now nearing adop-
tion after forty years, during which it was thought that all
amendment had ceased indefinitely.

Whether it will be decided to take away the power of the
Supreme Court over legislation and make it directly respon-
sible to Congress or the people, or to call a constitutional
convention, is doubtful. A convention, as Senator Heyburn

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 41

recently pointed out in the Senate, is "bigger than the Consti-
tution" and might conceivably amend what is declared in
that instrument not to be amendable, by providing that the
States should be represented in the Senate in proportion to
population. Even then the existing partial disfranchisement of
the electors would prevent a new constitution from going "too
far" in a democratic direction. It is also true, as the same
senator said, that the habit of amending the Constitution is
a dangerous one (to capitalism), and that it might some day
put the capitalistic government's life at stake (7). But this
after all amounts only to saying that political evolution, like
all other kinds, is cumulative, and that its tempo is in the
long run constantly accelerated. Certainly each change
leads to more change. None of these proposed political
reforms, however, even a constitutional convention, is in
itself revolutionary, or promises to establish even a political
democracy. All could coexist, for example, with a still
greater restriction of the suffrage.

Nor do any of these measures in themselves constitute
the smallest step in the direction of political democracy as
long as a single effective check is allowed to remain. If there
is any doubt on the matter, we have only to refer to other
constitutions than ours which accomplish the same object
of checkmating democracy without a Supreme Court, with-
out an absolute executive veto, without an effective second
chamber, and in one important case without a written con-
stitution (England).

Or, we can turn to France, Switzerland, or New Zealand,
where the suffrage is universal and political democracy is
already approximated but rendered meaningless to the non-
capitalist masses by the existence of a majority composed
of small capitalists. And in countries like the United States,
where the small capitalists and their immediate dependents
are nearly as numerous as the other classes, a temporary ma-
jority may also be formed that may soon make full democracy
as "safe" for a considerable period as it is in Switzerland or
New Zealand. (6)

(6) Miss Jessie Wallace Hughan in her "American Socialism of the Present
Day" (page 184) has quoted me as saying (in the New York Call of Decem-
ber 12, 1909) that the amendability of the Constitution by majority vote is
a demand so revolutionary that it is exclusively Socialist property. Within
the limitations of a very brief journalistic article I believe this statement was
justified. It holdjs for the United States to-day. It does not hold for
agrarian countries like Australia, Canada, or South Africa, for backward

42 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

As soon as "State Socialism" reaches its point of most
rapid development, and as long as it continues to reach ever
new classes with its immediate benefits, it will doubtless
receive the support of a majority, not only of the voters, but
also of the whole population. During this period the " Social-
istic" capitalists will be tempted to popularize and strengthen
their movement not only by uncompleted political reforms,
that are abortive and futile as far as the masses are concerned,
but also by the most thoroughgoing democracy. For radi-
cal democracy will not only be without danger, but useful
and invaluable in the struggle of the progressive and collec-
tivist capitalists against the retrogressive and individualist
capitalists. As long as there is a majority composed of large
and small capitalists and their dependents, together with
those of the salaried and professional classes who are satisfied
with the capitalistic kind of collectivism (i.e. while its progress
is most brilliant), it is only necessary for the progressives to
hold the balance of power in order to have everything their
own way both against Socialism and reaction. The powerful
Socialist and revolutionary minority created in industrial
communities by equal suffrage and a democratic form of
government, as long as it remains distinctly a minority, is
unable to injure the combined forces of capitalism, while it
furnishes a useful and invaluable club by which the progres-
sive capitalists can threaten and overwhelm the reactionaries.

In Great Britain, for example, the new collectivist move-
ment of Messrs. Churchill and Lloyd George, basing itself
primarily on the support of the small capitalist class, which
there as elsewhere constitutes a very large part (over a third)
of the population, seeks also the support of a part of the non-
propertied classes. It cannot make them any plausible or
honest promise of any equitable redistribution of income or of
political power, but it can promise an increase of well-paid
government employment, and it can guarantee that it will
develop the industrial efficiency of all classes and allow them
a certain share, if a lesser one, in the benefits of this policy.

If then "State Socialism," like the benevolent despotisms
and oligarchies of history, sometimes offers the purely ma-

countries like Russia, or dependent countries like Switzerland or Denmark,
where there is no danger of Socialism. And before it can be put into effect,
which may take a decade or more, the increased proportion in the population
of well-paid government employees and of agricultural lessees of government
lands and similar classes, may make a democratic constitution a safe capital-
istic policy, for a while, even in the United States.

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 43

terial benefits which it brings in some measure to all classes,
as a substitute for democratic government, it also favors
democracy in those places where the small capitalists and
related classes form a majority of the community. The pur-
pose of the democratic policy, where it is adopted, is to stimu-
late new political interest in the "State Socialistic" pro-
gram, and by increasing cautiously the political weight of the
non-capitalists — without going far enough to give them any
real or independent power — to check the reactionary ele-
ment among the capitalists that tries to hold back the indus-
trial and governmental organization the progressives have in
view. It was in order to shift the political balance of power
that the reactionary Bismarck introduced universal suffrage
in Germany, and the same motive is leading Premier Asquith,
who is not radical, to add considerably to the political weight
of the working classes in England, i.e. not to the point where
they have any power whatever for their own purposes, but
only to that point where their weight, added to that of the
Liberals, counterbalances the Tories, and so automatically
aids the former party.

The Liberals are giving Labor this almost valueless install-
ment of democracy, just as they had previously granted
instead such immediate and material benefits as we see in the
recent British budgets, as if they were concessions, only hiding
the fact that they would soon have conferred these benefits on
the workers through their own self-interest, whether the workers
had given them their political support or not.

Mr. Lloyd George has said : —

"The workingman is no fool. He knows that a great party like
ours can, with his help, do things for him he could not hope to ac-
complish for himself without its aid. It brings to his assistance the
potent influences drawn from the great middle classes of this coun-
try, which would be frightened into positive hostility by a purely
class organization to which they do not belong. No party could
ever hope for success in this country which does not win the con-
fidence of a large portion of this middle class. . . .

"You are not going to make Socialists in a hurry out of farmers
and traders and professional men of this country, but you may scare
them into reaction. . . . They are helping us now to secure ad-
vanced Labor legislation ; they will help us later to secure land
reform and other measures for all classes of wealth producers, and
we need all the help they give us. But if they are threatened with
a class war, then they will surely sulk and harden into downright
Toryism. What gain will that be for Labor ? " (My italics.) (8)

44 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The Chancellor of the Exchequer here bids for Labor's
political support on the plea that what he was doing for Labor
meant an expense and not a profit to the middle class, and
that these reforms would only be assented to by that class as
the necessary price of the Labor vote. I have shown grounds
for believing that the chief motives of the new reforms have
nothing to do with the Labor vote. However much Mr.
Lloyd George, as a political manager, may desire to control
that vote, he knows he can do without it, as long as it is
cast against the Tories. The Liberals will hold the balance
of power, and their small capitalist followers will continue
to carry out their capitalistic progressive and collectivist
program — even without a Labor alliance. Nor does he fear
that even the most radical of reforms, whether economic or
political, will enable Labor to seize a larger share of the
national income or of political power. On the contrary, he
predicted in 1906 that it would be a generation before Labor
could even hope to be sufficiently united to take the first step
in Socialism. " Does any one believe," he asked, "that with-
in a generation, to put it at the very lowest, we are likely
to see in power a party pledged forcibly to nationalize land,
railways, mines, quarries, factories, workshops, warehouses,
shops, and all and every agency for the production and
distribution of wealth ? I say again, within a generation ?
He who entertains such hopes must indeed be a sanguine
and simple-minded Socialist." (9)

Mr. Lloyd George sought the support of Labor then, not
because it was all-powerful, but because, for a generation at
least, it seemed doomed to impotence — except as an aid
to the Liberals. The logic of his position was really not that
Labor ought to get a price for its political support, but that
having no immediate alternative, being unable to form a major-
ity either alone or with any other element than the Liberals,
they should accept gladly anything that was offered, for
example, a material reform like his Insurance bill — even
though this measure is at bottom and in the long run purely
capitalistic in its tendency.

And this is practically what Labor in Great Britain has
done. It has supported a government all of whose acts
strengthen capitalism in its new collectivist form, both eco-
nomically and politically. And even if some day an isolated
measure should be found to prove an exception, it would still
remain true that the present policies considered as a whole

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 45

are carrying the country rapidly and uninterruptedly in the
direction of State Capitalism. And this is equally true of
every other country, whether France, Germany, Australia,
or the United States, where the new reform program is being
put into execution.

Many "Socialistic" capitalists, however, are looking for-
ward to a time when through complete political democracy
they can secure a permanent popular majority of small
capitalists and other more or less privileged classes, and so
build their new society on a more solid basis. Let us assume
that the railways, mines, and the leading "trusts" are na-
tionalized, public utilities municipalized, and the national
and local governments busily engaged on canals, roads, for-
ests, deserts, and swamps. Here are occupations employing,
let us say, a fourth or a fifth of the working population; and
solvent landowning farmers, their numbers kept up by land
reforms and scientific farming encouraged by government,
may continue as now to constitute another fifth. We can
estimate that these classes together with those among the
shopkeepers, professional elements, etc., who are directly de-
pendent on them will compose 40 to 50 per cent of the popu-
lation, while the other capitalists and their direct dependents
account for another 10 per cent or more. Here we have the
possibility of a privileged majority, the logical goal of "State
Socialism," and the nightmare of every democrat for whom
democracy is anything more than an empty political reform.
With government employees and capitalists (large and small)
— and their direct dependents, forming 50 per cent or more
of the population, and supported by a considerable part of
the skilled manual workers, there is a possibility of the estab-
lishment of an iron-bound caste society solidly intrenched in
majority rule.

There are strong reasons, which I shall give in later chap-
ters, for thinking that some great changes may take place
before this day can arrive.

CHAPTER IV

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR

STATE Capitalism has a very definite principle and program
of labor reform. It capitalizes labor, views it as the principal
resource and asset of each community (or of the class that
controls the community), and undertakes every measure that
is not too costly for its conservation, utilization, and develop-
ment — i.e. its development to fill those positions ordinarily
known as labor, but not such development as might enable
the laborers or their children to compete for higher social
functions on equal terms with the children of the upper classes.

On the one hand is the tendency, not very advanced, but
unmistakable and almost universal, to invest larger and
larger sums for the scientific development of industrial effi-
ciency — healthy surroundings in childhood, good food and
healthy living conditions, industrial education, model fac-
tories, reasonable hours, time and opportunity for recreation
and rest, and on the other a rapidly increasing difficulty for
either the laborer or his children to advance to other social
positions and functions — and a restriction of the liberty of
laborers and of labor organizations, lest they should attempt to
establish equality of opportunity or to take the first step in
that direction by assuming control over industry and govern-
ment. From the moment it approaches the labor question
the "Socialist" part of "State Socialism" completely falls
away, and nothing but the purest collectivist capitalism re-
mains. Even the plausible contention that it will result in the
maximum efficiency and give the maximum product breaks
down. For no matter how much the condition of the laborers
is improved, or what political rights they are allowed to exer-
cise, if they are deprived of all initiative and power in their
employments, and of the equal opportunity to develop their
capacities to fill other social positions for which they may
prove to be more fit than the present occupants, then the
human resources of the community are not only left under-
developed, but are prevented from development.

46

47

In the following chapters I shall deal successively with
the plans of the "State Socialists" to develop the productive
powers of the laboring people and their children — as la-
borers, together with the accompanying tendencies towards
compulsory labor, and formation of a class society.

"Our Home policy," says a manifesto of the Fabian
Society (edited by Bernard Shaw), "must include a labor
policy, whether the laborer wants it or not, directed to secur-
ing for him, what, for the nation's sake even the poorest of its
subjects should have." (Italics mine.) (1)

Here is the basis of the attitude of the "State Socialist"
towards labor. Labor is to be given more and more atten-
tion and consideration. But the governing is to be done by
other classes, and the foundation of the new policy is to be
the welfare of society as these other classes conceive it, —
and not the welfare of the masses of the people as conceived
by the masses themselves.

Indeed, a government official has recently pleaded with
capital in the name of labor that the time has come when it
pays to treat labor as well as valuable horses and cattle.
George H. Webb, Commissioner of Labor of Rhode Island,
begins his report on Welfare Work by assuring the manu-
facturers that it is profitable. He says: "Mankind, at
least that portion of it that has to do with horseflesh, dis-
covered ages ago that a horse does the best service when it is
well fed, well stabled, and well groomed. The same prin-
ciple applies to the other brands of farm stock. They one
and all yield the best results when their health and comforts
are best looked after. It is strange, though these truths
have been a matter of general knowledge for centuries, that
it is only quite recently that it has been discovered that the
same rule is applicable to the human race. We are just
beginning to learn that the employer who gives steady em-
ployment, pays fair wages, and pays close attention to the
physical health and comfort of his employees gets the best
results from their labor." (2)

Mr. George W. Perkins, recently retired from the firm of
J. P. Morgan and Company, who has managed the intro-
duction of pensions, profit sharing, and other investments
in labor for the International Harvester Company, has also
expressed the view that these measures were profitable
" from a pecuniary standpoint." A good illustration is the cal-
culation of the Dayton Cash Register Company, which has

48 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

led in this "welfare work," that "the luncheons given each
girl costs three cents, and that the woman does five cents more
of work each day." Some such calculation will apply to the
whole colossal system of governmental labor reforms now
favored so widely by far-sighted employers. (3)

In order that the private policy of the more enlightened
of the large corporations should become the policy of govern-
ments, which employers as a class know they can control,
only two conditions need to be filled. Since all employers
must to some degree share the burdens of the new taxes
needed for such governmental investments in the improve-
ment of labor, there must be some assurance, first, that all
capitalists shall share in the opportunity to employ this more
efficient and more profitable labor ; and second, that the
supply of cheap labor, which has cost almost nothing to
produce, is either exhausted or, on account of its in-
efficiency, is less adapted to the new industry than it was to
the old. The impending reorganization of governments
to protect the smaller capitalists from the large (through
better control over the banks, railroads, trusts, tariffs, and
natural resources) will furnish the first condition, the natural
exhaustion or artificial restriction of immigration now immi-
nent together with the introduction of "scientific manage-
ment," the second. From a purely business standpoint the
greatest asset of the capitalists' government, its chief natural
resource, the most fruitful field for conservation, and the
most profitable place for the investment of capital will then
undoubtedly be in the labor supply.

In presenting the British Budget of 1910 to Parliament,
Mr. Lloyd George argued that the higher incomes and for-
tunes ought to bear a greater than proportionate share of
the taxes, because present governmental expenditures were
largely on their behalf, and because the new labor reforms
were equally to their benefit.

"What is it," he said, "that enabled the fortunate possessors
of these incomes and these fortunes to amass the wealth they enjoy
or bequeath? The security insured for property by the agency
of the State, the guaranteed immunity from the risks and destruc-
tion of war, insured by our natural advantages and our defensive
forces. This is an essential element even now in the credit of the
country ; and, in the past, it means that we were accumulating great
wealth in this land, when the industrial enterprises of less fortunately
situated countries were not merely at a standstill, but their resources
were being ravaged and destroyed by the havoc of war.

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 49

"What, further, is accountable for this growth of wealth? The
spread of intelligence amongst the masses of the people, the im-
provements in sanitation and in the general condition of the people.
These have all contributed towards the efficiency of the people, even
as wealth-producing machines. Take, for instance, such legislation
as the Educational Acts and the Public Health Acts ; they have cost
much money, but they have made infinitely more. That is true of
all legislation which improves the conditions of life for the people.
An educated, well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed people invariably
leads to the growth of a numerous well-to-do class. If property were to
grudge a substantial contribution towards proposals which insure
the security which is one of the essential conditions of its existence
or toward keeping from poverty and privation the old people whose
lives of industry and toil have either created that wealth or made it
productive, then property would be not only shabby, but short-
sighted." (Italics mine.) (4)

The property interests should be far-sighted enough to
support the present economic and labor reforms, not because
there is any fear in Great Britain either from a revolutionary
Socialist movement or from an organized political or labor
union upheaval, for Mr. Lloyd George ridicules both these
bogeys, but because such reforms contribute towards the effi-
ciency of the people, even as wealth-producing machines —
and increase the incomes of the wealthy and the well-to-do.

Mr. Lloyd George continued : —

"We have, more especially during the last 60 years, in this coun-
try accumulated wealth to an extent which is almost unparalleled
in the history of the world, but we have done it at an appalling waste
of human material. We have drawn upon the robust vitality of the
rural areas of Great Britain, and especially Ireland, and spent its
energies recklessly in the devitalizing atmosphere of urban factories
and workshops as if the supply were inexhaustible. We are now
beginning to realize that we have been spending our capital, at a
disastrous rate, and it is time we should take a real, concerted,
national effort to replenish it. I put forward this proposal, not a
very extravagant one, as a beginning." (My italics.) (5)

In order to do away with the economic waste of profitable
"human material" and the still more serious exhaustion of
the supply, the propertyless wage earner or salaried man for
the first time obtains a definite status in the official political
economy; he becomes the property of the nation viewed
"as a business firm," a part of "our" capital. His position
was much like a peasant or a laborer during the formation
of the feudal system. To obtain any status at all, to become

50 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

half free he had to become somebody's " man." Now he is
the "man," the industrial asset, of the government. This
paternal attitude towards the individual, however, is not at
all similar to the paternalist attitude towards capital. While
the individual capitalist often does not object to having his
capital reckoned as a part of the resources of a government
which capitalists as a class control, — roughly speaking in
proportion to their wealth, — we can picture his protests if
either his personal activity or ability or his private income
were similarly viewed as dependent for their free use and
development on the benevolent patronage of the State.
However, for the workers to become an asset of the State,
even while the latter is still viewed primarily as a commer-
cial institution and remains in the hands of the business
class, is undoubtedly a revolutionary advance.

Mr. Winston Churchill also gives, as the basis for the whole
program, the need of putting an end to that "waste of earn-
ing power" and of "the stamina, the virtue, safety, and
honor of the British race," that is due to existing poverty
and economic maladjustment. (6) Mr. John A. Hobson,
a prominent economist and radical, shows that the purpose
of the "New Liberalism" is the full development of "the
productive resources of our land and labor," (7) and denies
that this broad purpose has anything to do with Socialist
collectivism.

, Professor Simon Patten of the University of Pennsylvania
writes very truly about the proposed labor reforms, that "they
can cause poverty to disappear and can give a secure income
to every family," without requiring any sacrifice on the part
of the possessing classes. No one has shown more clearly
or in fewer words how intimately connected are the advance
of the worker and the further increase of profits. "Social
improvement," Professor Patten says, "takes him [the work-
man] from places where poverty and diseases oppress, and
introduce him to the full advantage of a better position. . . .
It gives to the city workman the air, light, and water that the
country workman has, but without his inefficiency and iso-
lation. It gives more working years and more working days
in each year, with more zeal and vitality in each working
day ; health makes work pleasant, and pleasant work becomes
efficiency when the environment stimulates men's powers
to the full. . . . The unskilled workman must be trans-
formed into an efficient citizen ; children must be kept from

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 51

work, and women must have shorter hours and better condi-
tions." (8)

Professor Patten has even drawn up a complete scientific
program of social reforms which lead necessarily to the eco-
nomic advantage of all elements in a community without any
decrease of the existing inequalities of wealth. "The in-
comes and personal efforts of those favorably situated,"
says Professor Patten, "can reduce the evils of poverty with-
out the destruction of that upon which their wealth and the
progress of society depend." (Italics mine.)

The reform program begins with childhood and extends
over every period of the worker's life. Ex-President Eliot
of Harvard and President Hadley of Yale and other leading
educators propose that its principles be applied to the nation's
children. Dr. Eliot insists that greater emphasis should be
laid on vocational and physical training and the teaching of
hygiene and the preservation of the health, which will
secure the approval of every "State Socialist." Anything
that can be done to elevate the health of the nation, and to
increase its industrial efficiency by the teaching of trades,
will pay the nation, considered as a going concern, a business
undertaking of all its capitalists. It might not improve the
opportunity of the wage earners to rise to better-paid posi-
tions, because it would augment competition among skilled
laborers ; while it would probably improve wages somewhat,
it might not advance them proportionately to the general
increase of wealth ; it might leave the unequal distribution
of wealth, political power, and opportunity even more un-
equal than they are to-day, but as long as the nation as a
whole is richer and the masses of the people better off, "State
Socialists" will apparently be satisfied.

President Hadley is even more definite than Dr. Eliot.
The new educational policy so thoroughly in accord with the
interests of the business and capitalist classes demands "for
the people" every opportunity in education that will make the
individual a better worker, while it allows his development as
a man and a citizen to take care of itself. President Hadley
urges that we follow along German lines in public education.
What he feels we still lack, and ought to take from Germany,
are the "industrial training and the military training of the
people": the children are forced to go to the elementary
schools for a time, and during that part of their education
they are kept out of the shops and the factories. They,

52 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

however, receive instructions in the rudiments of shop and
factory work." (9) In other words, the children are kept out
of the factory, but the shop and the factory are permitted
to enter the school. Doubtless an improvement, but not
yet the sort of education any business or professional man
would desire for his own children at twelve, fourteen, or
sixteen years of age. (a)

"State Socialism" looks at the individual, and especially
the workingman, almost wholly from the standpoint of
what the community, as at present organized, the capitalists
being the chief shareholders, is able to make out of him.
Each newborn child represents so much cost to the community
for his education. If he dies, the community loses so and so
much. If he lives, he brings during his life such and such a
sum to the community, and it is worth while to spend a
considerable amount both to prevent his early death or
disablement and to increase his industrial efficiency while
he lives. According to this view, Professor Irving Fisher
of Yale has calculated that the annual child crop in the
United States is worth about seven billion dollars per annum,
a sum almost equal to the annual value of our agricultural
crops. In both cases great economies are possible. Pro-
fessor Fisher has estimated that 47 per cent of the children
who die in America less than five years old could be saved
at an average cost of $20 per child, which means an annual
loss to the nation of $576,000,000, according to Professor
Fisher's calculation of what would have been the future

(°) A more democratic and truthful view of the German educational system
is that of Dr. Abraham Flexner (see the New York Times, October 1, 1911).
He says that the Germans have to solve the following kind of an educational
problem : —

"What sort of educational program can we devise that will subserve
all the various national policies — that will enable Germany to be a great
scientific nation, that will enable it to carry on an aggressive colonial and
industrial policy, and yet not throw us into the arms of democracy ? Their
present educational system is their highly effective reply.

"Our problem is a very different one," Dr. Flexner remarks. "Our historic
educational problem has been and is quite independent of any position we
might be able to achieve in the world. That problem has always been:
How can we frame conditions in which individuals can realize the best that
is in them ?"

Dr. Flexner is then reported to have quoted the following from a Spring-
field Republican editorial : —

"Germany could readily train her masses with a view to industrial effi-
ciency, whereas our industrial efficiency is only one of the efficiencies we
care about ; the American wishes to develop in many other ways, and to
have his educational system help him to do it."

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 53

value of all the children now lost (above their cost of main-
tenance).

"We have counted it our good fortune," says Professor Fisher,
" to dwell in a land where nature has been so prodigal that we have
not needed to fear want. We are only beginning to realize that
this very prodigality of nature has produced a spirit of prodigality
in men.

" It is the purpose of the conservation movement to rebuke and
correct this national trait, and the resources of science are now
concentrated in this mighty effort in that direction.

"The conservation of human life will, I believe, constitute the
grandest movement of the twentieth century.

"Not only do human beings constitute by far the greatest part
of our natural resources, but the waste of human life and strength
is by far the greatest of all wastes. In the report of President
Roosevelt's conservation commission, although his commission was
primarily appointed to conserve our natural rather than our vital
resources, it was pointed out that human beings, considered as
capitalized working power, are worth three to five times all our other
capital, and that, even on a very moderate estimate, the total
waste and unnecessary loss of our national vitality amounts to one
and one half billions of dollars per year." (10)

When the "State Socialist" policy has taken possession of
the world, which may be in the very near future, or, more
correctly speaking, when the world's business and politics
are so organized as to give this policy a chance for a full and
free application, is it not evident that every advanced nation
will consider it as being to its business interest to put an end
to this vast, unnecessary loss of life? And if half a billion
a year is lost through unnecessary deaths of very young
children, is it not probable that an equal sum is lost through
death later in childhood or early youth, another similar sum
through underfeeding in later life, or through lack of sufficient
exercise, rest, recreation, and outdoor life, and a far larger
amount through lack of industrial training? Is it not cer-
tain that unnecessary industrial accidents, sickness due to
overwork and early old age due to overstrain, are responsible
for another enormous loss? And, finally, is not unemploy-
ment costing a billion a year to the "nation, considered as a
business firm"? This last-named loss has been calculated,
for the United States alone, as 1,300,000 years of labor time
annually. If a round million of these years are saved —
if we estimate their value in profits at the low figure of $1000

54 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

each, — we have another billion (even allowing for 300,000
unemployable). (11)

Is it not clear that nearly every element in the community
will soon combine to do all that is humanly possible to put
an end to such costly abuses and neglect ; and that conscien-
tious and wholesale efforts to preserve the public health and
to secure industrial efficiency cannot be a matter of the dis-
tant future, when movements in that direction have already
been initiated in Great Britain, Australia, Germany, and
some other countries? Sir Joseph Ward, Premier of New
Zealand, says that the people of that country have already
calculated the value of each child — and, on this basis, made
it the subject of certain governmental investments. He
says : —

"To return to the annuity fund, apart from the assistance it gives
to the wife and children if the father is sick, it also contributes the
services of a medical man for a woman at childbirth, and the State
pays $30 for that purpose. If all of this is not needed to pay the
physician, the rest may be used for carrying on the home. This has
all been done with the view to helping the birth rate and bringing
into the world children under the most healthy conditions possible,
so that they may have a free chance of attaining man's or woman's
estate.

"We assess the value of an adult in our country as $1500. So,
from a business standpoint and on national grounds, we regard the
expenditure of a sum up to $30 as judicious, when the value of the
infant to the country may be fifty times that sum. Thus the small
wage earner's wife and children are provided for, and his fear about
being able to provide for a large family is decreased." (Italics
mine.) (12)

"I am of the opinion," declares Mr. Churchill, "that the
State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve
employer of labor," and that "the State must increasingly
and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and
aged, and, above all, of the children." He looks forward
"to the universal establishment of the minimum standards
of life and labor, and their progressive elevation as the in-
creasing energies of production may permit." (13)

Mr. Churchill rejects the supposition that the govern-
ment intends to stop with the extension of the eight-hour
law to miners. "I welcome and support this measure, not
only for its own sake," he said, "but more because it is, I
believe, simply the precursor of the general movement which

"STATE SOCIALISM:: AND LABOR 55

is in progress, all over the world, and in other industries
besides this, towards reconciling the conditions of labor
with the well-ascertained laws of science and health." (14)

It might be supposed that this measure would prove
costly to employers, but this is only a short-sighted view.
In the first place, working for less hours, the miners will
produce somewhat more per hour, but an even more impor-
tant ultimate benefit comes from the fact that the most
experienced miners, those who are most profitable, being
subject to less overstrain, will have a longer working
life.

Another measure already enacted towards establishing "a
national minimum" applies to the wages in ready-made
tailoring and some less important industries, to which shirt-
waist making is soon to be added. These are known as the
"sweated" trades, "where the feebleness and ignorance of
the workers and their isolation from each other render them
an easy prey to the tyranny of bad masters and middlemen
one step above them upon the lowest rungs of the ladder, and
themselves held in the grip of the same relentless forces,"
— where "you have a condition not of progress but of pro-
gressive degeneration." Mr. Churchill asked Parliament
to regard these industries as "sick and diseased," and "to
deal with them in exactly the same mood and temper as
we should deal with sick people," and accordingly boards
were established for the purpose of setting up a minimum
wage. (15)

But if employers are forced to pay higher wages, it may
be thought that they will lose from the law. This Mr.
Churchill effectively denies.

"In most instances," he says, "the best employers in the trade
are already paying wages equal or superior to the probable minimum
which the Trade Board will establish. The inquiries I have set on
foot in the various trades scheduled have brought to me most satis-
factory assurances from nearly all the employers to whom my in-
vestigations have addressed themselves. . . . But most of all I
have put my faith in the practical effect of a powerful band of em-
ployers, perhaps a majority, who, whether from high motives or self-
interest, or from a combination of the two — they are not necessarily
incompatible ideas — will form a vigilant and instructed police,
knowing every turn and twist of the trade, and who will labor con-
stantly to protect themselves from being undercut by the illegal
'competition of unscrupulous rivals."

56 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Mr. Churchill claims that employers who are trying to pur-
sue such trades with modern machinery and modern methods
are more seriously hampered by the competition of the
"sweaters" than they are by that of foreign employers.
"I cannot believe," he concludes, "that the process of rais-
ing the degenerate and parasitical portion of these trades up
to the level of the most efficient branches of the trade, if it
is conducted by those conversant with the conditions of the
trade and interested in it, will necessarily result in an increase
in the price of the ultimate product. It may even sensibly
diminish it through better methods." (16) Mr. Churchill
is able to point out, as with most of the other reforms, that
in one country or another they are already being put into
effect, the legislation against "sweating" being already in
force in Bavaria and Baden, as well as in Australia, under a
somewhat different form.

But the most striking of the British labor reforms has yet
to be mentioned. Not only were the present old age pensions
established by the common consent of all the political parties,
but a law has now been enacted — also with the approval
of all parties (and only twenty-one negative votes in Parlia-
ment) — to apply the same methods of state insurance
of workingmen to sickness, accidents, and even to unem-
ployment. The old age pensions were already more rad-
ical than those of Prussia in that the workingmen do
not have to contribute under the British law, while the
National Insurance Bill as now enacted surpasses both the
former British measure and the German precedent in every-
thing, except that it demands a lesser total sum from the
government. In the insurance against accidents, sickness, and
unemployment the government, instead of contributing the
whole amount, gives from two ninths to one third, one third
to one half being assessed against employers and one sixth
to four ninths against employees. At first this reform, it is
expected, will cost only about $12,500,000, and it will be
several years before the maximum expenditure of $25,000,000
is reached. But the measure is radical in several particu-
lars : it applies to clerks, domestic servants, and many other
classes usually not reached by measures of the kind, — a total
of some 14,000,000 persons; it provides $5,000,000 a year
for the maintenance of sanatoria for tuberculosis and creates
new health boards to improve sanitation and educate the
people in hygiene; and it furnishes physicians and medicines

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 57

for the insured, thus organizing practically the whole medical
force and drug supply as far as the masses are concerned.

In fact, the whole scheme may be looked on not so much as
a measure to aid the sick and wounded of industry financially,
as to set at work an automatic pressure working towards the
preservation of the health, strength, and productive capacity
of the people, and incidentally to the increase of profits.
As Mr. Lloyd George said in an interview printed in the
Daily Mail: "I want to make the nation more healthy than
it is. The great mass of illness which afflicts us weighs us
down and is easily preventable. It is a better thing to make
a man healthy than to pay him so much a week when he is ill."

Mr. Lloyd George points out that the German employers
have found that the governmental insurance against accidents
has proved a good investment : —

"When Bismarck was strengthening the foundation of the new
German Empire, one of the very first tasks he undertook was the
organization of a scheme which insured the German workmen and
their families against the worst evils arising from these common
accidents of life. And a superb scheme it was. It has saved an
incalculable amount of human misery to hundreds of thousands and
possibly millions of people.

"Wherever I went in Germany, north or south, and whomever I
met, whether it was an employer or a workman, a Conservative or
a Liberal, a Socialist or a Trade-union Leader — men of all ranks,
sections and creeds, with one accord joined in lauding the benefits
which have been conferred upon Germany by this beneficent policy.
Several wanted extensions, but there was not one who wanted to go
back. The employers admitted that at first they did not quite like
the new burdens it cast upon them, but they now fully realized the
advantages which even they derived from the expenditure, for it had
raised the standard of the workman throughout Germany." (My
italics.) (17)

It is not only worry and anxiety that were removed, but
definite and irregular sums that workers or their employers
had formerly set aside for insurance against accident, sickness,
and old age, were now calculated and regulated on a business
basis more profitable to both parties to the labor contract.
It is true that in Germany the employers only pay part of
the cost, the rest being borne almost entirely by employees,
while in Great Britain — as far as the old age pensions go —
the government pays all, and is likely to pay a considerable
part, perhaps a third, in the other insurance schemes. But
the plan by which the government pays all may prove even

58 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

less costly to the employing class, since landlords and inactive
capitalists on the one hand and the working people on the
other, pay the larger part of the taxes — so that state insur-
ance in this thoroughgoing form is perhaps destined to be
even more popular than the German kind.

The most radical provision of the new bill is that which
deals with unemployment. Though applying only to the
engineering and building trades, it reaches 2,400,000 people.
It proposes to give a weekly allowance to every insured person
who loses employment through no fault of his own, though
nothing is given in strikes and lockouts. And it is intended
to extend this measure to other employments. This is only
the first installment.

It is probable that Mr. Churchill's project that the State
should undertake to abolish unemployment altogether is the
most radical of all the proposed policies, excepting only that
to gradually expropriate all the future unearned increment
of land.

"An industrial disturbance in the manufacturing districts and the
great cities of this country," says Mr. Churchill, "presents itself
to the ordinary artisan in exactly the same way as the failure of
crops in a large province in India presents itself to the Hindoo culti-
vator. The means by which he lives are suddenly removed, and
ruin in a form more or less swift and terrible stares him instantly in
the face. That is a contingency which seems to fall within the most
primary and fundamental obligations of any organization of govern-
ment. I do not know whether in all countries or in all ages that
responsibility could be maintained, but I do say that here and now,
in this wealthy country and in this scientific age, it does in my
opinion exist, is not discharged, and will have to be discharged." (18)

Mr. Churchill proposes not only to guard against periods
of unemployment which extend to all industries in the case
of industrial crises, but also to provide more steady employ-
ment for those who are unoccupied during the slack seasons
of the year or while passing from one employer to another.
Above all he plans that the youth of the nation shall not waste
their strength entirely in unremunerative employment or in
idleness, but that every boy or girl under eighteen years of
age should be learning a trade as well as making a living.
Few will deny that the program of Mr. Churchill and his asso-
ciates in this direction marks a great step towards that "more
complete or elaborate social organization" which he advocates.

One of the most significant of all the measures by which

"STATE SOCIALISM'! AND LABOR 59

Mr. Churchill plans to lend the aid of the State to the raising
of the level of the working classes is his "Development"
Act. The object of this bill, in the language of Mr. Churchill,
is "to provide a fund for the economic development of our
country, for the encouragement of agriculture, for affores-
tation, for the colonization of England (the settlement of
agricultural land), and for the making of roads, harbors,
and other public works." Stated in these terms, the Devel-
opment Act is a measure of "State Socialism" for the gen-
eral industrial advance of the country, but the main argument
in its behalf lies in that clause of the bill which provides, to
quote from Mr. Churchill again: "that the prosecution of
these works shall be regulated, as far as possible, by the
conditions of the labor market, so that in a very bad year of
unemployment they can be expanded, so as to increase the
demand for labor at times of exceptional slackness, and thus
correct and counterbalance the cruel fluctuations of the labor
market." (19)

We have seen that Mr. Churchill has justified these meas-
ures, not as increasing the relative share of the working
classes, but as adding to the total product. They are to add
to the industrial efficiency of the nation as a whole, and so
incidentally to bring a greater income to all, — but in much
the same proportions as wealth now distributes itself.

In this country Mr. Roosevelt has advocated a typical
"State Socialist" program of labor reforms including : —

"A workday of not more than eight hours."

"The abolition of the sweat-shop system."

"Sanitary inspection of factory, workshop, mine, and home."

"Liability of employers for injury to body and loss of life" and
"an automatically fixed compensation."

"The passage and enforcement of rigid anti-child-labor laws
which will cover every portion of this country."

"Laws limiting woman's labor."

All these measures except the first were adopted long ago,
in considerable part at least, by the reactionary government
of Prussia and are being introduced generally in monarchical
and aristocratic Europe, and I have shown that the eight-
hour day has been instituted for miners in Great Britain and
that Mr. Winston Churchill proposed to extend it. Mr.
Roosevelt himself concedes that "we are far behind the older
and poorer countries" in such matters. But an examination

60 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of the action of State legislatures during the year just past
will show that we are making rapid progress in the same
direction.

"Social" or "industrial" efficiency, promoted by the govern-
ment, is already the central idea in American labor reform.
Government insurance against old age, accident, sickness,
and unemployment is regarded, not as the "workingmen's
compensation" for injuries done them by society, but as an
automatic means of forcing backward employers to economize
the community's limited supply of labor power — not to
wear it out too soon, not to overstrain it, not to damage it
irreparably or lay it up unnecessarily for repairs, and not to
leave it idle. Mr. Louis Brandeis points out that mutual
fire insurance has appealed to certain manufacturers because
in twenty years it has resulted in measures that have pre-
vented more than two thirds of the expected losses by fire.
Similarly, he says, "if society and industry and the individual
were made to pay from day to day the actual cost of sickness,
accident, invalidity, premature death, or premature old age
consequent upon excessive hours of labor, of unhygienic
conditions of work, of unnecessary risk, and of irregularity
in employment, those evils would be rapidly reduced." (20)

This, as Mr. Brandeis says, is undoubtedly on the "road to
social efficiency" and its practical application will convince
employers better than "mere statements of cost, however
clear and forceful." It will remove a vast sea of human
misery, and the process will immensely enrich society. But
like the other State Capitalist reforms (until they are supple-
mented by some more radical policy) it will at the same time
automatically bring about an increase of existing inequalities
of income and an intensification of social injustice.

Mr. William Hard in a study of workingmen's compensa-
tion for Everybody's Magazine has reached a similar conclu-
sion to that of Mr. Brandeis: "Far from attacking the
present relationship between employer and employee, auto-
matic compensation specifically recognizes it. The backbone
of the present so-called ' capitalism' ; namely, the hiring of
the unpropertied class by the propertied class to do work for
wages, is not caused by automatic compensation to lose a
single vertebra, and automatic compensation has nothing
whatever to do with Socialism except that it is accomplished
under the supervision of the State." If compulsory insurance
against accidents "has nothing whatever to do with Social-

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 61

ism," neither have compulsory insurance against sickness,
against old age, against certain phases of unemployment.

The social reformers propose a labor policy that is for the
people whether they like it or not ; the only "rights" it gives
them are "the right to live" and "the right to work." Its
first object is to produce more efficient and profitable labor-
ers, its second to have the government take control of organ-
ized charity, to which aspect I must now turn. Most of the
labor reforms, enacted to secure for the laborer "what for
the Nation's sake even the poorest of its subjects should
have," have been urged more strongly by philanthropists
and political economists than by representatives of the work-
ers. In America "the minimum wage," for example, is being
worked up by a special committee consisting almost exclu-
sively of this class, while workmen's compensation has been
indorsed by the most varied political and social elements,
from the chief organ of American philanthropists, and Theo-
dore Roosevelt, to the Hearst newspapers.

With "the national efficiency" in view, Mr. Webb asks
the British government to take up the policy of a "national
minimum," including not only a minimum below which
wages are not to fall, but also a similar minimum of leisure,
sanitation, and education. (21) Mr. Edward Devine, editor
of the leading philanthropic and reform journal in America,
the Survey, outlines an identical policy and also insists like
Mr. Webb that the Socialist can lay no exclusive claim to it.

"The social economist [i.e. reformer]," writes Mr. Devine, "is
sometimes confused with the Utopian [i.e. Socialist]. They are,
however, very distinct types of reformers. The Utopian dreams
of ideals. The social economist seeks to establish the normal. . . .
The social worker is primarily concerned, not with the lifting of
humanity to a higher level, but with eradicating the maladjust-
ments and abnormalities, the needless inequalities, which prevent
our realizing our own reasonable standards."

Speaking in the name of American reformers in general,
Mr. Devine demands for the lower levels of society "normal
standards" of life, which are equivalent to Mr. Webb's
national minimum, and definitely denies the applicability
of "the question-begging epithet of Socialism which is hurled
at all the reformers engaged in such work."

"Whether it belongs to the Socialist program," Mr. Devine
objects, "is a question so far as we can see of interest only

62 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

to the Socialists. Our advocacy of such laws as we enumer-
ate has no Socialist origin." He claims that the "expendi-
tures legitimately directed towards the removal of adverse
social conditions, are not uneconomic and unproductive,"
and that "they do not represent a mere indulgence of altruis-
tic sentiment," but are "investments"; of which prison
reforms and the expenditures for the prevention of tuber-
culosis are examples. (22)

Another phrase for the proposed saving of the national
labor resources and the introduction of minimum standards
in its philanthropic aspect is "the abolition of poverty."
When he speaks of this as a definite and by no means a dis-
tant reform, the reformer refers to that extreme form of pov-
erty, so widely prevalent to-day, which results in the physical
deterioration and the industrial inefficiency of a large part
of the population.

This sort of poverty is a burden on industry and the capital-
ists, and Mr. Lloyd George was widely applauded when he
said that it can and must be done away with. He has cal-
culated, too, that this abolition can be accomplished at half
the cost of the annual increase in armaments.

" This is a War Budget," said Mr. Lloyd George in presenting the
reform program of 1910. " It is for waging implacable war against
poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that
before this generation has passed away we shall have advanced a
great step toward the time when poverty, and the wretchedness
and the human degradation which always follows in its camp, will
be as remote from the people of this country as the wolves which
once infested its forests."

Mr. H. G. Wells, who has been a leading figure in the
British reform world and in the Fabian Society for many
years, speaks on this reform movement not merely as a keen
outside observer. As an advocate of more radical measures,
he argues that there is nothing Socialistic about "the national
minimum." This "philanthropic administrative Social-
ism," as Mr. Wells calls it, is very remote, he says, from the
spirit of his own. (23) Yet, critical as Mr.Wells is, he also
advocates a policy that could be summed up in the single
phrase, "industrial efficiency." "The advent of a strongly
Socialistic government would mean no immediate revolu-
tionary changes at all," he says. "There would be no doubt
an educational movement to increase the economic value
and productivity of the average citizen of the next generation,

"STATE SOCIALISM:: AND LABOR 63

and legislation upon the lines laid down by the principle of
the 'minimum wage' to check the waste of our national
resources by destructive employment. Also a shifting of
the burden of taxation of enterprise to rent would begin."
(My italics.) The Liberals who are already setting these
reforms on foot disclaim any connection whatever with
Socialism, but Mr. Wells argues that they do not realize the
real nature of their policy.

The establishment of this paternal "State Socialism,"
whether based on a philanthropic "national minimum" or
a scientific policy of "industrial efficiency," many other
"Socialists" besides those of Great Britain consider to be
the chief task of Socialism itself in our generation. Among
the latter was the late Edmond Kelly, a member of the
Socialist party in this country at the time of his death,
who, in his posthumous work, "Twentieth Century Social-
ism," has summed up his political faith in much the same
way as the anti-Socialist reformer might have done. He
says that three of the four chief objects of Socialism are
the organization of society, first "to prevent that overwork
and unemployment which lead to drunkenness, pauperism,
prostitution, and crime" ; second, "to preserve the resources
of the country"; and third, "to produce with the greatest
economy, with the greatest efficiency." (24) Yet Mr.
Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller, as well as Mr. Roosevelt,
agree to all three of these policies. They are precisely what
the leading Socialists have called "State Socialism."

A part of the working people, also, are disposed to subordi-
nate their own conceptions of what is just, in spite of their
own better judgment, to an exclusive longing for an immediate
trial of this kind of State benevolence. This is expressed in
the widely used phrase, "every man to have the right to
work and live," - — employed editorially, for example, by Mr.
Berger, now Socialist Congressman. What is demanded by
this principle is not a greater proportion of the national income
or an increasing share of the control over the national govern-
ment, but the "State Socialist" remedies, employment, and the
minimum wage. In its origin this is the begging on the part
of the economically lowest element, a class which Henry
George well remarks has been degraded by poverty until it
considers that "the chance to labor is a boon."

Some years ago the municipal platform of the Milwaukee
Socialists said that it must be borne in mind "that the

64 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

famine-stricken is better served with a piece of bread than
with the most brilliant program of the future" and that "in
view of the hopelessness of an immediate radical better-
ment in the position of the working class" it is necessary
to emphasize the importance of attaining "the next best." (25)
Here again was admitted complete dependence on those who
own the bread and have the disposition of "the next best"
in political reforms. When capitalism is a little better
organized, the working people will be guaranteed "the next
best": steady work and the food, conditions, and training
necessary to make that work efficient — just as surely as
valuable slaves were given these rights by intelligent masters
or as valuable horses even are given care and kindly treat-
ment to-day.

"A Socialist Social Worker" has published anonymously
in the Survey a letter which presents in a few words the whole
Socialist position as to this type of reform. The writer
claims that the very fact that he is a social worker shows that
even as a Socialist he welcomes "every addition to the stand-
ard of living that may be wrested or argued from the Capital-
ist class," since all Socialists recognize that "no undernour-
ished class ever won a fight against economic exploitation,
but that the more is given the more will be demanded and
secured." But he does not feel that the material better-
ments have any closer relation to Socialism.

"The new feudalism," he says, "will care for and conserve
the powers of the human industrial tool as the lord of the
manor looked after the human agricultural implement. . . ."
Here is the essential point: the efficiency of the human in-
dustrial tool is to be improved with or without his consent.

"Unrestrained Capitalism," says the same writer in explanation
of his prediction, "has hitherto invariably meant the physical de-
terioration of the working class and the marginal disintegration of
society — the loosening of social ties and the pushing of marginal
members of society over the brink into poverty, pauperism, va-
grancy, drunkenness, prostitution, wife desertion and crime, but
this deterioration is not the main indictment against capitalism, and
will be remedied by the wiser capitalists themselves. The main
indictment of capitalism is that it selfishly and stupidly blocks the
road of orderly and continuous progress for the race."

The proposal of the social reformers, as far as the workers

are concerned aims to put an end to this deterioration, to

.standardize industry or to establish a minimum of wages,

65

leisure, health, and industrial efficiency. The writer says
that the Socialists aim at something more than this.

"The criterion of social justice in every civilized community,
he writes, "is, and always has been, not how large or how intense is
the misery of the social debtor class, but what is done with the social
surplus of industry? It was formerly used to build pyramids, to
create a landed or ecclesiastical or literary aristocracy, to conduct
wars, or to provide the means of a sensuous life for the majority
of a privileged class, and the means of dilettantism for the minority
of it. The difference between the near Socialist and the true Socialist
is principally that the main attention of the former is given to the negative
side of the social problem — the condition of the submerged classes,
while that of the latter is given to the positive side of the problem — the
wonderful development, power, and life that would come to that race and
the individual if a wise and social use were to be made of. the surplus of
industry."

CHAPTER V
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION

So far I have spoken only of the constructive side of the
new capitalism's labor program, its purpose to produce
healthy and industrially efficient laborers so as to increase
profits. "State Socialism" gives the workingman as a
citizen certain carefully measured political rights, and legis-
lates actively in his behalf as a profit-producing employee at
work, but its policy is reversed the moment it deals with
him and his organizations as owners and sellers of labor.

Towards the individual workers, who are completely
powerless either politically or economically until they are
organized, the new capitalism is, on the whole, both be-
nevolent and actually beneficent. But it does not propose
that organized labor shall obtain a power either in industry
or in government in any way comparable to that of or-
ganized capital.

"Successful State Socialism," as Victor S. Clark says in
writing of the Australian experiments, "depends largely
upon perfecting public control over the individual." (1)
But compulsory arbitration of labor disputes which reaches
the wage earners' organizations, is far more important to
"State Socialism " than any other form of control over in-
dividual. A considerable measure of individual liberty may
be allowed without endangering this new social polity, and it
is even intended systematically to encourage the more able
among the workers by some form of individual or piece
wages — or at least a high degree of classification of the
workers — and by a scheme of promotion that will utilize
the most able in superior positions, and incidentally remove
them out of the way as possible leaders of discontent.

Nor is it intended to use any compulsion on labor organiza-
tions beyond that which is essential to prevent them from
securing a power in society in any way comparable to that
of property and capital. For this purpose compulsory
arbitration is the direct and perfect tool. It can be limited

66

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 67

in its application to those industries where the unions really
occupy a position of strategic importance like railroads and
coal mines, and it can be used to attach to the government
those employees that are unable to help themselves. I have
mentioned those weaker groups of employees who would be
unable to improve their condition very materially except
by government aid, and, even when so raised to a some-
what higher level, have no power to harm capitalism. Com-
pulsory arbitration or some similar device must therefore
replace such crudely restrictive and oppressive measures as
have hitherto been applied to the unions.

In the United States all "dangerous" strikes are at present
throttled by court injunctions forbidding the strikers to take
any effective action, and boycotts are held to be forbidden
by the Sherman law originally directed against the "trusts."
Recently the Supreme Court decided that the officers of the
American Federation of Labor were not to be imprisoned for
violation of the latter statute. But the decision was purely
on technical grounds, and the court upheld unanimously the
application of the law to the unions. There is little question
that the attorney for the manufacturers, Daniel Davenport,
was right when he thus summed up the court's opinion : —

"It held that the boycott is illegal; that the victim of the boy-
cott has the right to go into court of equity for protection by in-
junction; that such court has the right to enjoin any and every
act done in enforcing the boycott, including the sending out of
boycott notices, circulars, etc., that the alleged constitutional right
of free speech and free press affords the boycotter no immunity
for such publication ; that for a violation of the injunction the
party violating it is liable to be punished both civilly and crim-
inally."

Against this law and the use of injunctions in labor dis-
putes the Federation of Labor has introduced a bill through
Congressman W. B. Wilson, which aims to free the unions
from these legal obstacles by enacting that no right to con-
tinue the relation of employer to employee or to carry on
business shall be construed as property or a property right ;
and that no agreement between two or more persons concern-
ing conditions of employment or its termination shall con-
stitute a conspiracy or an offense against the law unless it
would be unlawful if done by a single individual, and that,
therefore, such an act is not subject to injunctions. While
neither of the great parties has definitely promised to sup-

68 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

port this particular measure, one party has made a vague
promise to restrict injunctions, and the leaders of the progres-
sive wings of both are quite definite about it. Nearly half
of the House of Representatives voted for the repeal of the
Sherman law as applied against union boycotts. Senator
La Follette has demanded the abolition of this species of
injunction, and Governor Woodrow Wilson has accused our
federal courts of "elaborating a theory of conspiracy destined
to bring 'the sympathetic strike' and what is termed 'the
secondary boycott' under legal condemnation."

Such reforms are not as radical as might appear to Ameri-
cans, for the boycott is legal in Germany, while the crime of
"conspiracy" was repealed in Great Britain in 1875, and the
rights of strikers were further protected in that country by
the repeal of the Taff Vale decision against picketing a few
years ago, and yet unions are in no very strong position there.
And weak as they are, the talk of compulsory arbitration
is growing, and it seems only question of time until some modi-
fication of it is adopted. And, though the abuse of injunc-
tions and the other forms of anti-union laws and decisions
now prevailing will probably be done away with in this coun-
try, there is little doubt that here also employers will use
some great coal or railroad strike as a pretext for enacting
a compulsory arbitration law. (a)

Similarly, as governments continue to take on new indus-
trial functions, great importance is attached to the right of
government employees, now denied, to organize and to join
unions. Senator La Follette and other progressives also
champion this right against President Taft, and will doubtless
win their fight, but, as I shall show later a right to organize
does not mean a right to strike — and there seems no prob-
ability that any government will fail to answer the effort

(o) In her "American Socialism of the Present Day" (p. 185), Miss
Hughan has quoted me (see the New York Call of December 12, 1909),
as classing the abolition of the injunction as one of the revolutionary demands
never to be satisfied until the triumph of Socialism. As a means to check
the growth of the power of the unions, this method of arbitrary government
by judges has never been resorted to except in the United States. It is
evident, then, that this statement was only meant for America. It should
also have been qualified so as to apply solely to the America of to-day. For
as other methods of checking the unions exist in other countries, it is obvious
that they could be substituted in this country for the injunction, a proposi-
tion in entire accord with all I have written on the subject — though unfor-
tunately not stated in this brief journalistic expression. I have now come
to the belief, on the grounds given in the text, not only that a new method
of fighting the unions (namely, compulsory arbitration) can be substituted
for the injunction, but that this will be done within a very few years.

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 69

to strike on any very large scale either by punishment for
conspiracy against the State or by excluding the strikers
permanently from government employment. They will
doubtless be offered, as in France, instead of the right to strike,
the right to submit their grievances as a body, if they wish
it, to some government board (see Part III, Chapter VI).

The Australasian labor leaders were the first and are still
the chief advocates of compulsory arbitration among the
unionists, and if they find it used against them they have
nobody but themselves to blame. That Labor is disap-
pointed in the result in those countries is shown by the
fact that of late years, both in Australia and New Zealand,
the most important strikes have been settled outside of the
compulsory arbitration acts, and Mr. Clark states that he
is unaware of any important exception.

But that the workers in Australia still hope to use this
legislation for their purposes is shown by the referendum of
1911, by which they sought to nationalize the State laws on
the subject. At the time of the railroad strike in Victoria,
Australia, in 1903, a law was passed which imposed a penalty
of "twelve months' imprisonment or a fine of one hundred
pounds" for engaging in a strike on government railways,
and made a man liable to arrest without warrant or bail
"for advising a strike orally or by publication, or for attend-
ing any meetings of more than six persons for the purpose
of encouraging strikers." Even then the limit had not been
reached. In 1909 the Parliament of New South Wales
passed an act especially directed against strikes in any
industry which produced "the necessary commodities of
life [these being defined as coal, gas, water, and food] the
privation of which may tend to endanger human life or cause
serious bodily injury," and the penalty of twelve months'
imprisonment of the Victorian law was extended to all this
vast group of industries also. The law of New South Wales
was most stringent, providing that any one taking part in
a strike meeting under these circumstances is also liable
to twelve months' imprisonment, and that the police may
break into the headquarters of any union and seize any
documents "which they reasonably suspect to relate to
any walk-out or strike." Under this law the well-known
labor leader, Peter Bowling, was sentenced to one year of
imprisonment.

The unions violently denounced this enactment, but chiefly

70 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

as they had denounced previous legislation, on the ground that
it permitted unorganized workmen to apply for relief under
the law. That is to say, while the employers were using the
law to make striking a crime, they were extending such bene-
fits as it produced to the nonunion workers who can often
be used as tools for their purposes. But the astounding
hold that "State Socialism" has on the Australian masses,
especially on the working people, is shown by the steadfast
belief that this measure can be amended so as to operate
to their interest. Bowling and his unions made a serious
agitation for the general strike against the coercive measure
just mentioned, but it was only by a tie vote that the New
South Wales Labour Congress even favored protest in the
form of cancelling the agreement which the unions had made
under the Industrial Disputes Acts, while in the next elec-
tions New South Wales returned a majority of labor repre-
sentatives opposing Bowling's policy of radical protest.
That is, the majority of the working people still express
confidence in the possibilities of compulsory arbitration,
and even want to extend it.

Professor Le Rossignol of the United States and Mr.
William D. Stewart of New Zealand have undertaken a care-
ful and elaborate investigation of compulsory arbitration
in New Zealand. (2) A reference to a few of their quota-
tions from original documents will show the nature and
possibilities of this coercive measure as it has developed in
the country of its origin. The original law in New Zealand
was introduced by the Honorable William Pember Reeves,
the Minister of Labor, in 1894, and was supported by the«
labor leaders. Mr. Reeves says : "What the act was pri-
marily passed to do was to put an end to the larger and
more dangerous class of strikes and lockouts. The second
object of the act's framer was to set up tribunals to regulate
the conditions of labor."

"Mr. Reeves' chief idea," say our authors, "was to pre-
vent strikes, and a great deal more was said in Parliament
about industrial peace than about the improvement in the
conditions of labor which the act was to bring about. But
there can be little doubt that the unionists, without whose
help the act could not have been passed, thought more of
the latter than of the former result, and looked upon the
act as an important part of the new legislation for the benefit
of the working class." Here is the contrast that we must

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 71

always keep in mind. The purpose of the unionists is to see
if they cannot obtain improvements in their conditions; the
purpose of the employers and also of "the public" is to prevent
strikes. One of the most able students of the situation, Mr.
MacGregor, has shown that since the passing of the law the
latter purpose has been thoroughly accomplished, since it
has been used not only as was originally intended, to settle
labor disputes which become so serious as to threaten to
"arrest the processes of industry," but that it has practically
built up a "system of governmental regulation of wages and
conditions of labor in general." That is to say, the law has
accomplished rather the purposes of the employers than those
of the employees.

In another point of the most fundamental importance the
law has become something radically different from what the
labor leaders who first favored it hoped it would be. The
act of 1894 was entitled: "An act to encourage the forma-
tion of industrial unions and associations and to facilitate
the settlement of industrial disputes by conciliation and
arbitration." By the amendment of 1898 the words, "to en-
courage the formation of industrial unions and associations,"
were left out. Thus the law ceased to be directly helpful to
the very unions which had done so much to bring it about and
are the only means employees possess to make the law serve
them instead of becoming a new weapon for employers.

An early decision of the Arbitration Court in 1896 had
declared that preference should be given to the unionists.
"Since the employer was the judge of the qualifications of
his employees, the unionists did not gain much by this deci-
sion," say Le Rossignol and Stewart. "In later awards it
was usually specified that preference was granted only when
the union was not a closed guild, but practically open to every
person of good character who desired to join." These later
decisions brought it about that the so-called preference of
unionists became no preference at all. "The Arbitration
Court, except in a few minor cases, has refused to grant
unconditional preference and the unionists, realizing that
preference to an open union is no preference at all, now look
to Parliament for redress and demand statutory uncondi-
tional preference to unionists."

In 1905 strikes and lockouts were made statutory offenses,
and a single judge was given the power practically to force
the individual worker to labor. After ten years of trial the

72 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

law had become almost unrecognizable from the working-
man's standpoint, and from this moment on the resistance
to it has grown steadily. In a decision rendered in 1906,
the Chief Justice said : "The right of a workman to make a
contract is exceedingly limited. The right of free contract
is taken away from the worker, and he has been placed in a
condition of servitude or status, and the employee must
conform to that condition." Not only do judges have this
power, but they have the option of applying or not applying
it as they see fit, for the amendment of 1908 "expressly
permits the court to refuse to make an award if for any reason
it considers it desirable to do so." With a law, then, that
in no way aids the unions, as such — however beneficial
it may be at times to the individual workingman — and
which leaves an arbitrary power in the hands of the judge
elected by an agricultural majority, what has been the con-
crete result ? Especially, what principles have been applied
by the judges ?

Of course the first principle has been that all the
working people should get what is called a "minimum"
or a "living" wage, but our authors show that merely
to keep their heads above the sea of pauperism was not
at all the goal of the workers of New Zealand. No doubt
they were already getting such a wage in that relatively
new and prosperous country, yet this was all the new law
did or could offer, besides keeping existing wage scales up to
the rising cost of living. Anything more would have required,
not compulsory arbitration, but a series of revolutionary
changes in the whole economic and political structure.
"Another stumbling block in the way of advance in wages
is the inefficient or marginal or no-profit employer, who,
hanging on the ragged edge of ruin, opposes the raising of
wages on the ground that the slightest concession would
plunge him into bankruptcy. His protests have their effect
on the Arbitration Court, which tries to do justice to all the
parties and fears to make any change for fear of hurting
somebody. But the organized workers, caring nothing for
the interests of any particular employer, demand improved
conditions of labor, though the inefficient employer be elimi-
nated and all production be carried on by a few capable
employers doing business on a large scale and able to pay the
highest wages."

Here is the essential flaw in compulsory arbitration in

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 73

competitive industries (its limitations under monopolies
will be mentioned later). The courts cannot apply a differ-
ent standard to different employers. On the other hand, they
cannot fix a wage which any employer cannot afford to pay
or which will drive him out of business. That is to say, the
standard tends to be fixed by what the poorest employer
can pay, the employer who, from the standpoint either of
capital or of labor or of efficient industry, really deserves
to be driven from business. An exception is made only
against such employers as cannot even afford to pay a living
wage — these alone are eliminated.

Le Rossignol and Stewart show that in view of these con-
siderations the court has repeatedly stated that "profit
sharing could not be taken as a basis of awards, on the
ground that it would involve the necessity of fixing differen-
tial rates of wages, which would lead to confusion, would be
unfair to many employers, and unsatisfactory to the workers
themselves."

With such a principle guiding the court, and it is probably
a necessity under commercial competition, it is no wonder
that some of the representatives of the unions have claimed
that annual real wages have actually fallen. " It is not easy,"
say our authors, "to show that compulsory arbitration has
greatly benefited the workers of the Colony. Sweating has
been abolished, but it is a question whether it would not have
disappeared in the years of prosperity without the help of
the Arbitration Court. Strikes have been largely prevented,
but it is possible that the workers might have gained as much
or more by dealing directly with their employers than by the
mediation of the court. As to wages, it is generally admitted
that they have not increased more than the cost of living.
A careful investigation by Mr. von Dalezman, the Registrar-
General, shows that, while the average wages increased from
1895 to 1907 in the ratio of 84.8 to 104.9, the cost of food
increased in the ratio of 84.3 to 103.3. No calculation was
attempted for clothing or rent." If we take it into account
that rents have risen very rapidly and are especially com-
plained of by the working people, we can see that real wages,
measured by their purchasing power, probably fell in the first
twelve years of compulsory arbitration, notwithstanding
that it was on the whole a period of prosperity in the Colony.
For ten years, as a consequence, the complaints of the workers
against the decisions have been growing, "not because the

74 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

wages were reduced, but because they were not increased,
and because other demands were not granted."
f When the unions perceived that the principles for which
they have been contending were not granted, and that their
material conditions were not being improved, it was suggested
that the judge of the Arbitration Court should be elected
by the people, in the hope that the unions might control the
election, "but this would be at variance with all British
traditions and could not be brought about," say our authors.
No doubt British tradition has had something to do with
the matter, but the impracticability of this remedy is much
more due to the fact that the employees confront an agri-
cultural and middle class majority.

At first it was the employers who were displeased, but now
they are becoming converted. The employers, say Le
Rossignol and Stewart, "have come to realize that they
might have lost more by strikes than they have ever lost by
arbitration ; and, since the workers have been dissatisfied,
the employers are more disposed to stand by the act, or to
maintain a neutral attitude, waiting to see what the working-
men will do."

It would seem, then, that the real gain from the law has
been through the abolition of strike losses, and since these
had previously been borne by employers and employees alike,
this saving has been pretty equally divided between the two
classes, neither making any relative gain over the other. But
at the bottom this is a blow to the unions, for the purpose of
every union policy is not merely to leave things where they
were before, but to increase the workers' relative share. Any
policy that brings mutual gain requires no organized struggle
of any kind. It is the workers who are the plaintiffs, and the
employers the defendants. When things are left in statu quo
it is a moral and actual defeat for the employees.

This is why, in the last two or three years, the whole labor
movement in New Zealand has arisen against the law. In
1908 the coal miners' union refused to pay a fine levied
against it, alleging that it had no funds. "In this position
the union was generally condemned by public opinion, but
supported by a number of unions by resolutions of sympathy
and gifts of money. Finally, the Arbitration Court decided
to proceed against the men individually for their share of the
fine. The whole of the fine, together with the costs of col-
lection, amounting to over 147 pounds, was recovered by

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 75

means of attachment orders under the Wages Attachment
Act of 1895. According to a recent decision of the Court
of Appeals, the men could have been imprisoned, if they
had refused to pay, for a maximum term of one year, but it
was not necessary to do this, and public opinion was not in
favor of imprisonment for the offense."

This and other strikes in 1907 and 1908 "caused a wide-
spread opinion among employers and the general public that
the act should be amended chiefly for the sake of preventing
strikes. "The laborers, as a class, were not enthusiastic
about the matter, since the proposed amendments were
designed to compel them to obey the law rather than to
bring them any additional benefit." After having been
debated for a year, a new law was passed, and went into effect
January 1, 1909. This new law, though still compulsory,
repeals some of the features of the previous legislation which
were most obnoxious to the unions. Even this act, however,
they found entirely unsatisfactory, and "during the year
ending March 31, 1909, sixteen workers' unions, and a like
number of employers' unions, had their registration cancelled
for neglect, while two other unions formally cancelled their
registration." This meant practically that these unions have
withdrawn from the field of the act and expressed their dis-
approval of compulsory arbitration, even in its recently
modified form. Not only have the unions been withdrawing,
but, freed from its bondage, they began at once to win their
most important strikes, indicating what its effect had been.
Even the employees of the State have been striking, and
successfully.

"The workers' position is embarrassing. The original
act was passed for their benefit as well as to prevent strikes,
but when it could no longer be used as a machine for raising
wages, they were the first to rebel against it." There can be
no doubt that our authors are correct, and that the working
people are beginning to feel they have been trapped. In both
New Zealand and Australia they have given their approval
to an act which in actual practice may become more danger-
ous than any weapon that has ever been forged against them.
The only possible way they could gain any advantage from
it would be if they were able to elect the judge of the Arbi-
tration Court, but, to obtain a political majority for this
purpose, they would have to develop a broad social pro-
gram which would appeal to at least a part of the agricul-

76 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

turists as well as to the working people, but here we turn to
the considerations to be brought out in the next chapter.

Mr. Charles Edward Russell, as the result of two visits
to Australasia, has very ably summed up the Socialist view
of compulsory arbitration in The Coming Nation, of which
he is joint editor. Mr. Russell says : —

"The thing is a failure, greatly to the surprise of many capable
observers, and yet just such a result might have been expected from
the beginning, and for two perfectly obvious reasons, both of which,
strange to say, were universally overlooked.

"In the first place, the court was nominally composed of three
persons, and really of one. That one was the judge appointed by
the government.

"The representative of the employers voted every time for the
employers; the representative of the unions voted every time for
the unions ; the judge alone decided, and might as well have con-
stituted the whole court.

"At first the judge decided most of the cases in favor of the
policy of increasing wages. Fine, again. Many wage scales
ascended.

"But the judge, as a rule, did not like his job. He desired to
get to the Supreme Court as rapidly as possible ; to the Supreme
Court where the honors were. A succession of judges went by. At
last came one that agreed with the employers that wages were too
high for the welfare of the country. This had long been a com-
plaint of the manufacturers in particular, who were fond of pointing
out how high wages discouraged the opening of new factories, and
consequently the development of the country. This judge, being
of the same opinion, apparently, began to decide the cases the other
way.

"Then, of a sudden the second fatal defect in the system opened
up.

"The men grew restless under the adverse decisions of the court.
That raised a new question.

"How are you going to compel men to work when they do not
wish to work under the conditions you provide ?

" Nobody had thought of that."

Referring, then, to the failure to prevent the strike
of the slaughterers against the law in 1907, or to pun-
ish them after they had forced their employers to terms,
Mr. Russell gives the Socialist opinion of the legislation of
1908, passed to remedy this situation : —

"At the next session of Parliament it amended the law to meet
these unexpected emergencies and find a way to compel men to work.

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 77

"To strike after a case had been referred to the court was now
made a crime, punishable by a fine, and if the fine were not paid,
the strikers' goods could be distrained and he could be imprisoned.
Any labor union that ordered a strike or allowed its members to
strike was made subject to a fine of $500. Outside persons or or-
ganizations that aided or abetted a strike were made subject to
severe penalties.

" Fine, again. But suppose the labor unions should try to evade
the law by withdrawing from registry under the act ? Government
thought once more, and produced another amendment by which the
penalties for striking were extended to all trades engaged in supplying
a utility or a necessity, whether such trades were organized or not. \

"You could hardly surpass this for ingenuity. 'Supplying a
necessity' would seem to cover about everything under the sun and
to make striking impossible. There must be no more strikes.

"Sounds like home, doesn't it? To do away with strikes. You
see the employing class, which all around the world gets what it
wants and controls every government, had put itself back of the
arbitration law. It had discovered that the law could be made to
be a good thing, so it was at the dictation of this class that the
amendments were passed. What the injunction judges do in
America, or try to do, the law was to do in New Zealand.

"Except that not Judge Goff nor Judge Guy, nor any other in-
junction judge of our own happy clime, has dared to go quite so far
as to declare that all striking everywhere is a crime to be punished
with imprisonment.

"How are you going to compel men to work? Why, thus, said
the government of New Zealand. Put them hi jail if they do not
like the terms of their employment."

Mr. Russell then gives an account of the miners' strike,
above referred to, which he points out was ended by the
labor department paying the miners' fines. He concludes : —

" Mr. Edward Tregear, a scholar and thinker, had filled for many
years the place of chief secretary for labor. It is not a cabinet office,
but comes next thereto. He is a wise person and a sincere friend of
the worker, as he has shown on many occasions. As soon as he
heard that the ministry actually purposed to imprison the miners
because they did not like the terms of their employment, he went
to the minister of labor and earnestly protested, protested with tears
in his eyes, as the minister himself subsequently testified, begged,
argued, and pleaded. No possible good could come from such rigor,
and almost certainly it would precipitate grave disaster.

"To all this the minister was obdurate. Then Mr. Tregear
said that he would resign ; he would not retain his office and see
men imprisoned for exercising their inalienable right of choice,
whether they would or would not work under given conditions.

78 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"Now Mr. Tregear was one of the most popular men in New
Zealand, and his resignation under such conditions would raise a
storm that no ministry would care to face. Hence the government
was in a worse situation than ever. On one side it fronted a dan-
gerous venture with the certainty of a tremendous handicap in the
resignation of the chief secretary, and on the other hand was an
acknowledgment that the arbitration law was a failure and could
be violated with impunity.

"In this emergency decision was halted for a few hours while the
government people consulted. Meantime, by quick and desperate
efforts, the strike was ended, and the men went back to work.

"This left the fines unpaid. The labor department solved that
difficulty and allowed the defeated government to make its escape
from a hopeless situation by paying the miners' fines.

"To all intents and purposes it was the end of compulsory ar-
bitration in New Zealand. Not nominally, for nominally the thing
goes on as before ; but actually. It is only by breaking our shins
upon a fact that most of us ever learn anything ; and the exalted
ministry of New Zealand had broken its shins aplenty on a fact that
might have been discerned from the start.

"If you are to have compulsory arbitration, you must compel
one side as much as the other.

"But in the existing system of society, when you come to com-
pelling the workers to accept arbitration's awards, you are doing
nothing in the world except to compel them to work, and, however
the thing may be disguised, compulsory work is chattel slavery,
against which the civilized world revolts.

"This is the way the thing works out, and the only way it ever
can work out. There can be no such thing as compulsory arbitra-
tion without this ultimate situation.

"If, therefore, any one in America believes in such a plan for
the settlement of labor troubles, I invite the attention of such a one
to this plain record.

"For my own part, years ago I was wont to blame the labor
leaders of America because they steadfastly rejected compulsory
arbitration, and I now perceive them to have been perfectly right.
The thing is impossible." (3)

A somewhat similar act to the Australasian ones, though
less stringent, has been introduced in Canada. The Canadian
law, which is a compromise between compulsory arbitration
and compulsory investigation, applies to mines, railways,
and other public utilities. Strikes have been prevented, but
let us see what benefits the employees have received. What-
ever its effect on wages and hours, the law has the tendency
to weaken the unions, which hitherto have been the only
reliable means by which employees were able to advance their

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 79

condition. Not only does it make organization seem less
necessary, but it takes the most powerful weapon of the union,
the ability to call a sudden strike. If we add to this the un-
favorable influence on public opinion in case the unions are
not contented with the rewards, and the fact that the law
works against the union shop, which is the basis of some
unions, we can understand the ground of their hostility.

"The Canadian Labour Disputes Investigation Act" is
especially interesting and important because it is serving as
a model for a campaign to introduce legislation along similar
lines into the United States. Already Mr. Victor S. Clark,
the author of the study of the Australian Labour Movement,
to which I have referred at the beginning of the chapter,
has been sent by Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft to investigate
into the working of the act. Ex-President Charles W. Eliot
of Harvard has also advocated strenuously and at some
length a similar statute, and it has been made the basis for
the campaign in Massachusetts and other states. Mr. Clark
reported: "Under the conditions for which it was devised,
the Canadian law, in spite of some setbacks, is useful legisla-
tion, and it promises more for the future than most meas-
ures— perhaps more than any other measure — for promoting
industrial peace by government intervention."

Here is the very keynote to compulsory arbitration, accord-
ing to its opponents, whose whole attack is based on the fact
that its primary purpose is not to improve the condition of
the working people, but to promote "industrial peace by
government intervention."

Mr. Clark concedes that "possibly workers do sacrifice
something of influence in giving up sudden strikes," though
he claims that they gain in other ways. "After such a law
is once on the statute books, however, it usually remains, and
in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada it has created a new
public attitude toward industrial disputes. This attitude
is the result of the idea — readily grasped and generally
accepted when once clearly presented — that the public
have an interest in industrial conflicts quite as immediate
and important in its way as that of the conflicting parties.
// the American people have this truth vividly brought to their
attention by a great strike, the hopeful example of the Canadian
act seems likely, so far as the present experience shows, to prove
a guiding star in their difficulties." (Italics mine.)

In the agitation that was made in behalf of a similar law

80 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

in Massachusetts, just exactly what is meant by the word
"public" began to appear. It refers not only to the
consumers of the article produced by the industry in which
the strike occurs, but also to other dependent industries, to
the merchants of the locality where the workmen live, and to
the real estate interests. Here, then, are definite economic
interests which are concerned primarily in the prevention
of strikes and in the uninterrupted operation of the industry,
and only in a secondary way in rates of wages. It is not a
disinterested and non-partisan public; it is not on the side of
the employers nor on the side of the employees, but it is opposed
to the most effective weapons the working people have yet found
to advance their interests, namely, the strike and the boycott.

It is said that if the workers lose the right to strike, the
employers lose the right to lockout. It has been customary
to set the lockout over against the strike as being of equal
importance, but this is not the truth. Employers can dis-
charge their workingmen one at a time when they are dis-
satisfied with a limited number ; and they can often find a
business protest for temporarily shutting down or restricting
their output. To abolish strikes, then, is to take away the
employees' chief means of offense or defense ; while to pre-
tend to abolish strikes and lockouts is to leave in the hands of
the employers the ability to discharge or punish in other ways
the men with whom they are dissatisfied.

When it was proposed to introduce the Canadian law in
Massachusetts, no unionists of prominence indorsed it, but
it was favored by a very large number of employers, while
those employers who objected did so for widely scattered
reasons. Mr. Clark is probably right in suggesting that,
while such a law will not be enacted in the United States
as things are now, it is very probable that it can be secured
after some industrial crisis — and there is little doubt that
President Eliot and perhaps also Mr. Roosevelt, for whom
Mr. Clark was investigating, and many other influential
public men, are expecting this time to arrive soon.

The attitude of a large minority of British unions and of a
considerable part of the British Socialists is similar to that of
the Canadian and Australian majority. When in 1907
the railway employees of Great Britain were for the first
time sufficiently aroused and organized, and on the point of a
national strike, a settlement was entered into through the
efforts of Mr. Lloyd George and the Board of Trade (and it

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 81

is said with the assistance of King Edward) which involved
an entirely new principle for that country. A board was
constituted to settle this and future strikes of which the
Master of Rolls and other British functionaries were the lead-
ing elements. Actually the workers consented for several
years to leave in the hands of the judges over whose election
and appointment they have only an indirect and partial, if
indeed any, control, complete power over their industrial life.
The executive of the Fabian Society issued a manifesto con-
gratulating the government on this "progressive" settle-
ment, though few prominent labor leaders were willing to give
it their full indorsement. The Fabian manifesto said that
the advance in wages which could be secured by the settle-
ment "will undoubtedly have been secured on the trade-
union program, through the trade-union organization,
by the trade union's representatives, and finally, in the argu-
ment before the abritrator, by the ability of the trade union's
secretary." But this settlement had nearly all the features
of the Canadian law which I have just mentioned, and es-
pecially in failing to give any recognition to the unions,
left the strongest possible weapon in the hands of their ene-
mies. Nevertheless, more than a third of the members of
the British Trade Union Congress voted since that time for a
compulsory arbitration act, and British radicals like Percy
Alden, M.P., to say nothing of conservatives, agitate for a
law along New Zealand lines. The railway strike of 1911
has decreased the popularity of this proposal among unionists
and Socialists, but has augmented it in still greater propor-
tion among nearly all other classes. In the meanwhile, in
spite of the employees' efforts, and external concessions by the
employers, the power in the newest railway conciliation
scheme lies also in the hands of the government (see Part
III, Chapter V).

Statements by President Taft and other influential Ameri-
cans lead us to believe it will be a very short period of years
before similar legislation is applied to this country, in spite
of the hostility of the unions, or perhaps with the consent
of some of the weaker among them, which have little to gain
by industrial warfare. While Secretary of War, Mr. Taft
predicted a controversy between capital and labor which
should decide once and for all how capital and labor should
share the joint profits which they created. In this and many
similar utterances there is foreshadowed the interference

82 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of the State. Indeed, the settlement of the Pennsylvania
coal strike in 1903 was a clear example of such interference,
and there is no question that the precedents established will
be followed up on the next occasion of the kind by some
arrangement even less advantageous to employees who now
almost universally feel, as the present demands of the miner's
union show, that they got the worst of the former decision.

The railway and mining situations in Great Britain, and
the demand for the government to take some measure to
protect employees against the "trusts" in this country
(to say nothing of the menace of a great coal strike), promise
to make compulsory arbitration an issue of the immediate
future. Mr. Roosevelt, who now proposes that the govern-
ment should interfere between monopolies and their em-
ployees, is the very man who is responsible for the coal strike
tribunal of 1903, which not only denounced sympathetic
strike and secondary boycott, but failed to protect the men
against discrimination on account of their unionism. Were
he or any one like him President, the institution of govern-
ment wage boards would be dreaded like the plague.

Similarly Mr. Winston Churchill, in Great Britain, recog-
nizes the extreme seriousness of the situation. His position
is ably summed up by the Saturday Evening Post : —

" Winston Churchill has propounded a capital-and-labor puzzle to
his British constituents.

" To a modern state, he says in substance, railroad transportation
is a necessity of life — and how literally true this is of England was
shown in the general strike of last August, when the food supply
in some localities ran down to only a few days' requirements. So
the government cannot permit railroad transportation to be para-
lyzed indefinitely by a strike. It cannot sit by and see communities
starve. A point will soon be reached where it must intervene and
force resumption of transportation.

" Strikes, however, form one of the modern means of collective bar-
gaining between employer and employees. They are, in fact, the
workmen's final and most effective resource in driving a bargain.
Denied the right to strike, labor unions would be so many wooden
cannon at which employers could laugh. If the employer knew
absolutely that the men could not strike, he might offer any terms
he pleased. In wage bargaining the men would not stand on a
level footing, but be bound and gagged.

" If, then, the government takes away, or seriously restricts, the
right of the men to strike, isn't it bound to step into the breach and
readjust the balance between them and the employer, by compelling

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 83

the employer to pay them fair wages ? There can be no free bar-
gaining if it is known that at a certain point the government will
intervene on one side. Must it not, then, also be known that at
a certain point the government will intervene on the other side and
compel payment of adequate wages ?

"Mr. Churchill carries his puzzle only that far. On our own
account we add, How far will that leave us from regulation of wages
as well as of rates by the government, and how far will that leave
us from government ownership?" (4)

In a word, Mr. Churchill's remedy for the evils of "State
Socialism" is more "State Socialism" — and undoubtedly
there is an inevitable trend in that direction. But the govern-
ment railway strikes of France, Austria, Italy, Hungary,
and other countries ought to show him that his remedy,
advantageous as it may be from many standpoints, is scarcely
to be considered even as a first step towards the solution of
the labor problem. As long as capitalists continue to control
government, "State Socialism," on the contrary, makes the
strike more necessary, more decisive, and invaluable, not
only to employees, but to every class that suffers from the
government or the economic system it supports.

The most representative of American Socialists, Eugene
V. Debs,, has given us an excellent characterization of this
movement as it appears to most Socialists.

"Successful leaders are wise enough to follow the people. For
instance, the following paragraph is to the point : —

' Ultimately I believe that this control of corporations should
undoubtedly, directly or indirectly, extend to dealing with all ques-
tions connected with their treatment of their employees, including
the wages, the hours of labor, and the like.'

"And what Socialist made himself ridiculous by such a foolish
utterance ? No Socialist at all ; only a paragraph from his latest
article on the trusts by Theodore Roosevelt. Five years ago, or
when he was still in office and had the power, he would not have
dared to make that statement. But he finds it politically safe and
expedient to make it now. It is not at all a radical statement. On
the contrary, it is simply the echo of E. H. Gary, that is to say,
John Pierpont Morgan, president of all the trusts.

"Mr. Roosevelt now proposes that Bismarck attempted in Ger-
many forty years ago to thwart the Socialist movement, and that
is State Socialism, so called, which is in fact the most despotic and
degrading form of capitalism.

"President Roosevelt, who is popularly supposed to be hostile
to the trusts, is in truth their best friend. He would have the
government, the capitalist government, of course, practically

84 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

operate the trusts and turn the profits over to their idle owners.
This would mean release from responsibility and immunity of pros-
ecution for the trust owners, while at the same time the government
would have to serve as strikebreaker for the trust owners, and the armed
forces of the government would be employed to keep the working
class in subjection.

"If this were possible, it would mark the halfway ground between
industrial despotism and industrial democracy. But it is not
possible, at least it is possible only temporarily, long enough to
demonstrate its failure. The expanding industrial forces now
transforming society, realigning political parties, and reshaping the
government itself cannot be fettered in any such artificial arrange-
ment as Mr. Roosevelt proposes. These forces, with the rising and
awakening working class in alliance with them, will sweep all such
barriers from the track of evolution until finally they can find full
expression in industrial freedom and social democracy.

"In this scheme of State Socialism, or rather State capitalism,
Mr. Roosevelt fails to inform us how the idle owners of the trusts
are to function except as profit absorbers and parasites. In that
capacity they can certainly be dispensed with entirely and that is
precisely what will happen when the evolution now in progress cul-
minates in the reorganization of society." (5) (My italics.)

CHAPTER VI

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM" IN
AUSTRALASIA

AUSTRALIA and New Zealand are commonly taken as the
most advanced of all countries in government ownership,
labor reforms, and "State Socialism." Indeed they are
often pictured as almost ideally governed, and the credulity
with which such pictures are received shows the widespread
popularity of "State Socialism."

The central principle of the Australian and New Zealand
reforms is, however, not government ownership or compul-
sory arbitration, as commonly supposed, but a land policy.
By means of a progressive or graduated land tax it is hoped
to break up all large estates and to establish a large number
of small proprietors. When it was said to Mr. Fisher, the
new "Labour Party" Premier of Australia, that this policy
was not Socialism, he replied laconically, "It is my kind of
Socialism." (1)

The "State Socialism" of Australia and New Zealand
is fundamentally agrarian; its real basis is a modernized
effort to establish a nation of small farm owners and to pro-
mote their welfare.

Next in importance and closely connected with the policy
of gradually bringing about the division of the land among
small proprietors, is the policy of the government ownership
of monopolies. Already New Zealand is in the banking
business, and the Australian Labour Party proposes a national
bank for Australia. National life and fire insurance are
instituted in New Zealand ; the same measures are proposed
for Australia. Already many railroads are nationally owned,
and it is proposed that others be nationalized. Already
extensive irrigation projects have been undertaken; it is
proposed that the policy should be carried out on a wider
scale. But the Australian Labour Party is not fanatical upon
this form of "State Socialism." It does not argue, like the
British Independent Labour Party, that the civilization of a
community can be measured by the extent of collective

86

86 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ownership, for Australasia's experience has already shown the
immediate and practical limits of this kind of a movement.
New Zealand is already burdened with a very large national
debt ; Australia proposes that its debt shall be increased only
for the purpose of building commercially profitable railways
or irrigation schemes, etc., and not in any case for the purpose
of national defense or for other investments not immediately
remunerative.

The national debt, aside from that based on profit-making
governmental undertakings, like railways, is to be reduced,
and nationalization of other monopolies is not to be under-
taken until new measures of taxation have become effective.
These are a graduated land tax and an extension of the grad-
uated income and inheritance taxes. (2)

The program concludes with vigorous measures for national
defense. Australia is to own her navy (supported not by
loans, but by taxation), and is to be as independent as prac-
ticable of Great Britain. She feels a need for military
defense, but she does not propose to have a military caste,
however small ; the whole people is to be made military, the
Labour Party stands for a citizen defense force and not for
a professional army. Finally, Australia is to be kept for
the white race, especially for British and other peoples that
the present inhabitants consider desirable.

There remains that part of the program which has attracted
the most attention, namely, the labor reforms : working-
men's insurance, an eight-hour day, and an increase of the
powers of the compulsory arbitration courts. Already in
fixing wages it has been necessary for the court to decide
what is a fair profit to the employers, so profits are already
to some degree being regulated. It has been found that prices
and the cost of living are rising still more rapidly than wages ;
it is proposed that prices should also be regulated by with-
drawing the protection of the customs tariff from those
industries that charge an unduly high price.

I have mentioned the labor element of the program last,
for the Australian Labour Party is a democratic rather than
merely a labor movement. The Worker's Union, and the
Sheep Shearer's Society of the Eastern States, enrolled from
the first all classes of ranch employees, and "even common
country storekeepers and small farmers." (3) Some of
the miners' organizations have been built on similarly broad
lines, and these two unions constitute the backbone of the

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM \\ IN AUSTRALASIA 87

Labour Party. The original program of the New South
Wales Labour Electoral League, which formed the nucleus
of the Labour Party in 1891, proposed to bring together "all
electors in favor of democratic and progressive legislation,"
and was nearly as broad as the present program; that is to
say, it was by no means confined to labor reforms.

But are there any other features in the Australian situa-
tion, besides the dominating importance of the land question,
that rob this program of its significance for the rest of the
world? It cannot be denied that there are. In the first
place, it is only this recent social reform movement that has
begun to put New Zealand and Australia under real demo-
cratic government, and this democratization is scarcely yet
complete, since the constitutions of some of the separate
Australian States and Tasmania contain extremely undemo-
cratic elements ; while the federal government is dominated
by a Supreme Court, as in the United States. Consequently
it is only a few years in some of the States since such elemen-
tary democratic institutions as free schools were instituted.
It is evident, on the other hand, that countries establishing
democratic or semidemocratic institutions under the condi-
tions prevailing in the world as late as 1890, when the great
change took place in New Zealand, or during the decade,
1900-1910, when the political overturn gave Australia to
the Labour Party, should be more advanced than France,
Germany, Great Britain, or the United States, where the
latest great overturn in the democratic direction occurred
in each instance a generation or more ago.

So also Australia and New Zealand which, on the one
hand, are still suffering from the disadvantage of having
lived until recently under a system of large landed estates,
on the other hand have the advantage of dealing with the
land question in a period when the governments of these
new countries are becoming rich enough, through their own
enterprises, to exist independently of land sales, and when
farmers are more willing to increase the power of their govern-
ments, both in order to protect themselves from the encroach-
ments of capital and of labor, and directly to advance the
interests of agriculture. The campaign to break up the large
estates has kept the farmers engrossed in politics, and this
has occurred in a period 'when industrial organization has
made possible a whole program of "Constructive State
Socialism." By taking up this program the farmers and

those who wished to become farmers have at once looked to
their own interests and secured the political support of other
small capitalists and even of a large part of the workingmen.

But working against the nationalization of the unearned
increment, against the policy of leasing instead of selling the
public land, central features of every advanced "State
Socialist" policy, is the fact that the small farmers, daily
becoming more numerous, hope that they might themselves
reap this increment through private ownership. In no
national legislation is it proposed to tax away this increment
in agricultural land, which preponderates both in New
Zealand and Australia. But, while in other countries the
agricultural population is decreasing relatively to the whole,
in New Zealand the settlement of the country by the small
farmers has hitherto led it to increase, and the new legis-
lation in Australia must soon have the same result. So, in
spite of the favorable auspices, it seems that the climax of
the "State Socialism," the transformation of the small
farmer into a tenant of the State is not yet to be undertaken,
either in the shape of land nationalization or in the taxing
away of unearned increment. And while the Australian
Labour Party as an organization favors nationalization, a
large part of those who vote for this party do not, and its
leaders have felt that to have advocated nationalization
hitherto would have meant that they would have failed to
gain control of the government. And in proportion as the
new land tax creates new farmers, the prospects will be worse
than they are to-day.

The existing land laws of New Zealand are extremely mod-
erate steps in the direction of nationalization. In 1907,
after the best land had been taken up, a system of 66-year
leases was introduced, but only as a voluntary alternative
to purchase. After 1908 the annual purchases of large
estates were divided into small lots and leased for terms of
33 years, but this applies only to a relatively small amount
of land. It was only in 1907 that the graduated land tax
began to be enforced in a way automatically to break up the
large estates as it had been expected to do, and it was only
in 1910 that the new and more heavily graduated scale went
into effect. And finally it was only in 1907 that large land-
owners were forbidden to purchase, even indirectly, govern-
ment land. It has taken all these years even to discourage
large estates effectively, to say nothing of nationalization.

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM" IN AUSTRALASIA 89

"Some writers have predicted that the appetite for reform by
taxation will grow, and that the taxation will be increased and the
exemptions diminished until all the rent will be taken and the land
practically confiscated, according to the proposals of Henry George.
But the landless man, when he becomes a landholder, ceases to be
a single taxer, and is strongly opposed to Socialism. The land legis-
lation of New Zealand, although apparently Socialistic, is producing
results directly opposed to Socialism by converting a lot of dis-
satisfied people into stanch upholders of private ownership of land
and other forms of private property. The small farmers, then, are
breaking away from their former allies, the working people of the
towns, who now find themselves in the minority, but who are in-
creasing in numbers and who will demand, sooner or later, a large
share in the product of industry as the price of loyalty to the capital-
istic system." (4)

Without land nationalization the process of nationalizing
industry cannot be expected to proceed faster than it pays
for itself — for we cannot reckon as part of the national profits
the increased land values national enterprises bring about.
Nor will capitalist collectivism at this stage proceed even this
fast. Not only do the small taxpayers oppose the govern-
ment going into debt, but as taxpayers they are responsible
for all deficiencies, and they want only such governmental
enterprises as both produce a surplus and a sufficient one to
pay the deficits of the nonproductive departments of govern-
ment. To-day only about one fifth of the taxpayers pay
either land or inheritance taxes. But the increasing military
expenditures and the greater difficulty of securing large sums
by indirect taxation will increase this proportion. It is
likely, then, that State enterprises which, under private capi-
talism, were used recklessly as aids to land speculation will
now be required, as in Germany and other continental
countries, to produce a surplus to relieve taxpayers. Private
capitalism used the State for promoting the private interests
of its directors, State capitalism uses it to produce profits
for its shareholders, the small farmers, as taxpayers, or in
the form of profits distributed among them as consumers.
Only as the government begins to take a considerable share
of that increased value in land which nearly every public
undertaking brings about, will all wisely managed govern-
ment enterprises produce such profits.

The advance of "State Socialism," though it has several
other aspects, can be roughly measured by the number of
government enterprises and employees. The railways,

90 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

telegraphs, and the few government-owned mines of New
Zealand, have been calculated to employ about one eighth
of the population, a greater proportion than in America or
Great Britain, but scarcely greater than in Germany or France
— and not a very great stride even towards "State Social-
ism." And it seems likely that the present proportion in
New Zealand will remain for some time where it is. Gov-
ernment banking, steamships, bakeries, and the government
monopoly of the sale of liquor and tobacco might not prove
immediately profitable, and are less heard of than formerly.

Where "State Socialism" has proceeded such a little dis-
tance, the material benefits it promises to labor (though in
a lesser proportion than to other classes) have not yet ac-
crued. "It must be admitted," write Le Rossignol and
Stewart, "that the benefits of land reform and other Liberal
legislation have accrued chiefly to the owners of land and
other forms of property, and the condition of the landless and
propertyless wage earners has not been much improved."
Indeed, the condition of the workers is little, if any, better
than in America. Mr. Clark writes: "The general welfare
of the working classes in Australasia does not differ widely
from that in the United States. The hours of work are fewer
in most occupations, but the wage per hour is less than in
America. The cost of living is about the same in both coun-
tries. There appears to be as much poverty in the cities of
New Zealand as in the cities of the same size in the United
States, and as many people of large wealth." It is no doubt
true, as these writers say, that, of the people classed as
propertyless, "many are young, industrious, and well-paid
wage earners ; who, if they have health and good luck may
yet acquire a competency" in this as in any other new coun-
try. Yet it is only to those who "have saved something,"
i.e. to property holders, that the State really lends a help-
ing hand.

Even when New Zealand becomes an industrial country,
the writers quoted calculate that "it should be possible for
the party of property to attach to itself the more efficient
among the working class, by giving them high wages, short
hours, pleasant conditions of labor, opportunities for promo-
tion, a chance to acquire property, insurance benefits, and
greater advantages of every kind than they could gain under
any form of Socialism. If this can be done, the Socialists
will be in a hopeless minority."

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM" IN AUSTRALASIA 91

Here we have in a few words the universal labor policy
of "State Socialism." Labor reforms are to be given to the
working class first, to encourage in them as long as possible
the hope to rise; second, when this is no longer effective, to
make the upper layers contented, and finally to "increase
industrial efficiency," as these same writers say — but at
no time to put the workers on a level with the property-
owning classes.

Indeed, it is impossible to do more on a national scale, as
these writers point out, for both capital and labor are inter-
national. If "State Socialism" were carried to the point
of equalizing the share of labor, either immigration would be
attracted until wages were lowered again, or capital would
emigrate, or the nation would have to defend its exclusiveness
by being prepared for war.

"It is hard to see how any country, whether Socialistic or in-
dividualistic in its industrial organization, can long keep its advan-
tage over other countries without some restriction of immigration.
A thoroughgoing experiment in collectivism, therefore, could not be
made under favorable conditions in New Zealand or any other
country, unless that country were isolated from the rest of the
world, or unless the whole world made the same experiment at the
same time."

As between comparative isolation possibly in the near
future and world-wide or at least international Socialism,
certainly many years ahead, the Australian Labour Party,
under similar circumstances to that of New Zealand, has
chosen to attempt comparative isolation. It does not yet
propose to keep out immigrants, but it makes a beginning
with all non-white races, and it stands for a policy of high
protection and a larger army and navy. Naturally it does
not even seek admission into the International Socialist
Congress, where if any Socialist principle is more insisted
upon than another it is Marx's declaration that the Socialists
are to be distinguished from the other working class parties
only by the fact that they represent the interests of the entire
working class independently of nationality or of groups
within the nation.

Moreover, the militarism necessary to enforce isolation
may cost the nation, capitalists and workers alike, far more
heavily than to leave their country open to trade and immi-
gration. Indeed, it must lead, not to industrial democracy,
or even to capitalistic progress, but to stagnation and reac-

92 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

tion. The policy of racial exclusion will not only increase
the dangers of war, but it will bring little positive benefit
to labor, even of a purely material and temporary kind, since
the farming majority will not allow it to be extended to the
white race. Instead of restricting immigration, the new gov-
ernment projects require a thicker settlement, and everything
is being done to encourage settlers of means and agricultural
experience, and we cannot question that the coming of white
laborers will be encouraged when they are needed.

The size of the farms the government is promoting in New
Zealand proves that the country is deliberately preparing
for a class of landless agricultural laborers, and Australia
is following the example. Since these new farms average
something like two hundred acres, we must realize that as
soon as they are under thorough cultivation they will require
one or more farm laborers in each case, to be obtained chiefly
from abroad, producing a community resting neither on
"State Socialism" nor even on a pioneer basis of economic
democracy and approximate equality of opportunity similar
to that which prevailed during the period of free land in our
Western States.

Unmistakable signs show that in New Zealand an agrarian
oligarchy by no means friendly to labor has already estab-
lished itself. Even the compulsory arbitration act which
bears anything but heavily on employers in general, is not ap-
plied to agriculture. After two years of consideration it
was decided in 1908 that the law should not apply on the
ground that "it was impracticable to find any definite hours
for the daily work of general farm hands," and that "the
alleged grievances of the farm laborers were insufficient to
justify interference with the whole farming industry of
Canterbury" (the district included 7000 farms). Whatever
we may think of the first justification, the second certainly
is a curious piece of reasoning for a compulsory arbitration
court, and must be taken simply to mean that the employing
farmers are sufficiently powerful politically to escape the
law. The working people very naturally protested against
this "despotic proceeding," which denied such protection
as the law gave to the largest section of workers in the
Dominion.

What is the meaning, then, of the victory of a "Labour
Party" in Australia ? Chiefly that every citizen of Australia
who has sufficient savings is to be given a chance to own a

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM \\ IN AUSTRALASIA 93

farm. A large and prosperous community of farmers is to
be built up by government aid. Even without "State
Socialism" or labor reform the working people would share
temporarily in this prosperity as they did to a large degree
in that of the United States immediately after the Civil War,
until the free land began to disappear. It was impossible
to pay exceptionally low wages to a workingman who could
enter into farming with a few months' notice.

The Labour Party hopes to use nationalization of monop-
olies and the compulsory regulation of wages to insure per-
manently to the working classes their share of the benefit
of the new prosperity. How much farther such measures will
go when the agricultural element again becomes dominant
is the question. It is already evident that the Australian
reform movement, like that of New Zealand, includes, or at
least favors, the same class of employing farmers. The fact
that a Labour Party is in the opposition in New Zealand,
while in Australia a Labour Party has led in the reforms
and now rules the country, should not blind us to the farmers'
influence. The very terms of the graduated land tax and
the value of the farms chosen for exemption show mathe-
matically the influence, not alone of the small, but even the
middle-sized farmers. Estates of less than $25,000 in value
are exempt, and those valued at less than $50,000 are to be
taxed less than one per cent. Such farms, as a rule, must have
one or more laborers. Will these employees come in under
the compulsory arbitration law ? If they do, will they get
much benefit? The experience of New Zealand and the
present outlook in Australia do not lead us to expect that they
will.

Many indications point to a coming realignment of parties
such as was recently seen in New Zealand, when in 1909 it
was decided to form an opposition Labour Party. And it is
likely to come, as in New Zealand, when the large estates
are well broken up and the agricultural element can govern
or get all they want without the aid of the working people.
Already the Australian Labour Party is getting ready for the
issue. Its leaders have kept the proposed land nationaliza-
tion in the background, because they believe it cannot yet
obtain a majority. But it may be that the party itself is
now ready to fight this issue out on a Socialist basis, even if,
like the Socialist parties in Europe, such a decision promises
to delay for a generation their control of the government.

94 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

If the party is ready, it has the machinery to bring its leaders
to time, as it has done on previous occasions. For it already
resembles the Socialist parties in Europe in this, that it makes
all its candidates responsible to the party and not to their
constituents. That is to say, while it does not represent the
working people exclusively, it is a class organization standing
for the interests of that group of classes which has joined its
ranks, and for other classes of the community only in so far
as their interests happen to be the same.

Already the majority of the Labour Party voters are
undoubtedly working people. When it takes a definite
position on the land question, favoring one-family farms and
short leases or else cooperative, municipal, or national large-
scale operation, and states clearly that it intends to use
compulsory arbitration to advance wages indefinitely, includ-
ing those of farm laborers, there is every probability that,
having lost the support of the employing farmers, it will
gradually take its place as a party of permanent opposition
to capitalism, like the Socialist parties of Europe — until
industry finally and decisively surpasses agriculture, and the
industrial working class really becomes the most powerful
element in society.

Space does not permit the tracing of the "State Socialist " tendency
in other countries than Great Britain, the United States, and Austral-
asia. Originally a brief chapter was here inserted showing the similar
tendencies in Germany. This is now omitted, but the frequent ref-
erence to Germany later in dealing with the Socialist movement
makes a brief statement of the German situation essential. For
this purpose it will be sufficient to quote a few of the principal state-
ments of the excellent summary and analysis by William C. Dreher
entitled "The German Drift towards Socialism":

"The German Reichstag passed a law in May, 1910, for the regu-
lation of the potash trade, a law which goes further in the direction
of Socialism than any previous legislation in Germany. It assigns
to each mine a certain percentage of the total production of the
country, and lays a prohibitory tax upon what it produces in excess
of this allotment. It fixes the maximum price for the product in
the home market, and prohibits selling abroad at a lower price.
A government bureau supervises the industry, sees that the prices
and allotments are observed, examines new mines to determine their
capacity, and readjusts allotments as new mines reach the producing
stage. . . .

"But the radical features of the law are not completed in the
foregoing description. The bill having reduced potash prices, the
mine owners threatened to recoup themselves by reducing wages.

AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM'.' IN AUSTRALASIA 95

But the members of the Reichstag were not to be balked by such
threats ; they could legislate about wages just as easily as about
prices and allotments. So they amended the bill by providing
that if any owner should reduce wages without the consent of his
employees, his allotment should be restricted in the corresponding
proportion. . . .

"While the law is indeed decidedly Socialistic in tendency, it is
not yet Socialism. It hedges private property about with sharper
restrictions than would be thought justifiable in countries where,
as in the United States, the creed of individualism is still vigorous ;
and yet it is, in effect, hardly more than a piece of social reform
legislation, though a more radical one than we have hitherto seen. . . .

"In Germany, 'the individual withers' and the world of State
and Society, with its multifarious demands upon him, ' is more and
more.' This is, of course, a Socialistic tendency, but the substitute
that the Germans are finding for unlimited competition is not radical
Socialism, but organization. . . .

"The State, of course, takes hold of the individual life more
broadly, with more systematic purpose. The individual's health
is cared for, his house is inspected, his children are educated, he is
insured against the worst vicissitudes of life, his savings are in-
vested, his transportation of goods or persons is undertaken, his
need to communicate with others by telegraph or telephone is met
— all by the paternal State or city.

"Twenty-five years ago the Prussian government was spending
only about $13,500 a year on trade schools ; now it is spending above
three million dollars on more than 1300 schools. . . .

"The Prussian State had also long been an extensive owner of coal,
potash, salt, and iron mines. In 1907 a law was passed giving the
State prior mining rights to all undiscovered coal deposits. In
general, however, it must cede those rights to private parties on
payment of a royalty; but the law makes an exception of 250
'maximum fields,' equal to about 205 square miles, in which the
State itself will exercise its mining rights. It has recently reserved
this amount of lands adjacent to the coal fields on the lower Rhine
and in Silesia. The State has already about 80 square miles of
coal lands in its hands, from which it is taking out about 10,000,000
tons of coal a year. Its success as a mine owner, however, appears
to be less marked than as a railway proprietor; experienced busi-
ness men even assert that the State's coal and iron mines would be
operated at a loss if proper allowances were made for depreciation
and amortization of capital, as must be done in the case of private
companies. The State also derives comparatively small revenues
from its forest and farming lands of some 830,000 acres, which were
formerly the property of the Crown. . . .

"The most important State tax is that on incomes, which is in
all cases graduated down to a very low rate on the smallest income ;
in Prussia there is no tax on incomes less than $214. The cities also

96 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

collect the bulk of their revenues from incomes, using the same
classification and sliding scale as the State.

"A highly interesting innovation in taxation is the 'unearned
increment' tax on land values, first adopted by Frankfort-on-the-
Main in 1904, and already applied by over 300 German cities and
towns. . . .

"The bill before the Reichstag [since become a law — W. E. W.]
extends sick insurance to farm laborers and household servants,
a change which will raise the burden of this system for employers
from $24,000,000 to $36,000,000. The bill also provides for pen-
sioning the widows and orphans of insured laborers at an estimated
additional expense of about $17,000,000. . . .

"A better result of the insurance systems than the modest
pensions and the indemnities that they pay is to be found in their
excellent work for protecting health and prolonging life. Many
offices have their own hospitals for the sick, and homes for the con-
valescent. . . .

"All these protective measures have already told effectively
upon the death rate for tuberculous diseases. In the three years
ending with 1908, deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis dropped
from 226.6 to 192.12 per 100,000.

"The accident system has also had a powerful effect in stimulat-
ing among the physicians and surgeons the study of special ways
and means for treating accident injuries, with reference to preserv-
ing intact the strength and efficiency of the patient. . . .

"Bismarck once, in a speech in the Reichstag, explicitly rec-
ognized the laborer's right to work. Some twenty German cities
have given practical effect to his words by organizing insurance
against nonemployment ; and the governments of Bavaria and
Baden have taken steps to encourage this movement. Under the
systems adopted, the laborer pays the larger part of the insurance
money, and the city the rest ; in a few cases money has been given
by private persons to assist the insurance." (5) [N.B. The word
"Socialistic" is used by Mr. Dreher in the sense of "State Social-
ism," as opposed to what he calls "radical Socialism."]

CHAPTER VII
"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY"

MANY reformers admit that no reforms can bring us
towards democracy as long as class rule continues. Henry
George, for example, recognizes that his great land reform, the
government appropriation of rent for public purposes, is use-
less when the government itself is monopolized, "when po-
litical power passes into the hands of a class, and the rest
of the community become merely tenants." (1) In precisely
the same way every great "State Socialist" reform must fail
to bring us a single step towards real democracy, as long as
classes persist.

That strongly marked social classes do exist even in the
United States is now admitted by Dr. Lyman Abbott,
Andrew Carnegie, and by innumerable other, by no means
Socialistic, observers.

"The average wage earner," says John Mitchell, "has
made up his mind that he must remain a wage earner. He
has given up the hope of a kingdom to come where he will
himself be a capitalist." (2) This feeling is almost univer-
sally shared by manual wage earners, and very widely also
by salaried brain workers. Large prizes still exist, and their
influence is still considerable over the minds of young men.
But, as was pointed out recently in an editorial of the Satur-
day Evening Post, they are "just out of reach," and the in-
stances in which they actually materialize are "so relatively
few as to be negligible." Even if these prizes were a hundred
fold more numerous than they are, the children of the wage
earners would still not have a tithe of the opportunity of the
children of the well-to-do.

To-day in the country opportunities are no better than in
the towns. The universal outcry for more farm labor can
only mean that such laborers are becoming relatively fewer
because they are giving up the hope that formerly kept them
in the country, namely, that of becoming farm owners.
Already Mr. George K. Holmes of the United States Bureau
of Statistics estimates that in the chief agricultural section
H 97

98 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of the country, the North Central States, a man must be rich
before he can become a farmer, and so rapidly is this condi-
tion spreading to other sections that Mr. Holmes feels that
the only hope of obtaining sufficient farm labor is to persuade
the children of the farmers to remain on the farms.

"Fifty years ago," said McClure's Magazine in a recent
announcement, which sums up some of the chief elements
of the present situation, "we were a nation of independent
farmers and small merchants. To-day we are a nation of
corporation employees." There can be no question that we
are seeing the formation in this country of very definitely
marked economic and social classes such as have long pre-
vailed in the older countries of Europe. And this class divi-
sion explains why the political democracies of such countries
as France, Switzerland, the United States, and the British
Colonies show no tendency to become real democracies. Not
only do classes defend every advantage and privilege that
economic evolution brings them, but, what is more alarming,
they utilize these advantages chiefly to give their children
greater privileges still. Unequal opportunities visibly and
inevitably breed more unequal opportunities.

The definite establishment of industrial capitalism, a
century or more ago, and later the settlement of new coun-
tries, brought about a revolutionary advance towards equality
of opportunity. But the further development of capitalism
has been marked by steady retrogression. Yet nearly all
capitalist statesmen, some of them honestly, insist that
equality of opportunity is their goal, and that we are making
or that we are about to make great strides in that direction.
Not only is the establishment of equality of opportunity
accepted as the aim that must underlie all our institutions,
even by conservatives like President Taft, but it is agreed that
it is a perfectly definite principle. Nobody claims that there
is any vagueness about it, as there is said to be about the
demand for political, economic, or social equality.

It may be that the economic positions in society occupied
by men and women who have now reached maturity are
already to some slight degree distributed according to relative
fitness; and, even though this fitness is due, not to native
superiority, but to unfair advantages and unequal opportunity,
it may be that a general change for the better is here impossible
until a new generation has appeared. But there is no reason,
except the opposition of parents who want privileges for

"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 99

their children, why every child in every civilized country
to-day should not be guaranteed by the community an equal
opportunity in public education and an equal chance for
promotion in the public or semi-public service, which soon
promises to employ a large part if not the majority of the
community. No Socialist can see any reason for continuing
a single day the process of fastening the burdens of the future
society beforehand on the children of the present generation of
wage earners, children as yet of entirely unknown and unde-
veloped powers and not yet irremediably shaped to serve in
the subordinate rdles filled by their parents.

But the reformers other than the Socialists are not even
working in this direction, and their claims that they are,
can easily be disproved. Mr. John A. Hobson, for example,
believes that the present British government is seeking to
realize "equality of opportunity," which he defines as the
effort "to give equal opportunities to all parts of the country
and all classes of the people, and so to develop in the fullest
and the farthest-sighted way the national resources." (3)
But even the more or less democratic collectivism Mr.
Hobson and other British Radicals advocate, if it stops short
of a certain point, and its benefits go chiefly to the middle
classes, may merely increase middle-class competition for
better-paid positions, and so obviously decrease the relative
opportunities of the masses, and make them less equal than
they are to-day.

Edward Bernstein, the Socialist, says : "The number of the
possessing classes is to-day not smaller, but larger. The enor-
mous increase of social wealth is not accompanied by a
decreasing number of large capitalists, but by an increasing
number of capitalists of all degrees." Whether this is true
or not, whether the well-to-do middle classes are gradually
increasing in each generation, say, to 5, 10, or 15 per cent
of the population, cannot be a matter of more than secondary
importance to the overwhelming majority, the "non-possess-
ing classes," that remain outside. Nobody denies that social
evolution is going on even to-day. But the masses will
probably not be willing to wait the necessary generations
and centuries before present tendencies, should they chance
to continue long enough (which is doubtful in view of the
rapid formation of social castes), would bring the masses
any considerable share of existing prosperity.

To secure anything approaching equality of opportunity,

100 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the first and most necessary measure is to give equal educa-
tional facilities to all classes of the population. Yet the
most radical of the non-Socialist educational reformers do
not dare to hope at present even for a step in this direction.
No man has more convincingly described what the first step
towards a genuinely democratic education must be than
Ex-President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, perhaps our most
influential representative of political as opposed to social
democracy.

"Is it not plain," asks President Eliot, "that if the Ameri-
can people were all well-to-do they would multiply by four
or five times the present average school expenditure per child
and per year? That is, they would make the average
expenditure per pupil for the whole school year in the United
States from $60 to $100 for salaries and maintenance, instead
of $17.36 as now. Is it not obvious that instead of providing
in the public schools a teacher for forty or fifty pupils, they
would provide a teacher for every ten or fifteen pupils ? " (4)

The reform proposed by Dr. Eliot, if applied to all the
twenty million children of school age in the United States,
would mean the expenditure of two billion instead of three
hundred and fifty million dollars per year on public education.
Ex-President Eliot fully realizes the radical and democratic
character of this proposed revolution in the public schools,
and is correspondingly careful to support his demands at
every point with facts. He shows, for instance, that while
private schools expend for the tuition and general care of
each pupil from two hundred to six hundred dollars a year,
and not infrequently provide a teacher for every eight or
ten pupils, the public school which has a teacher for every
forty pupils is unusually fortunate.

Dr. Eliot says that while there has been great improve-
ment in the first eight grades since 1870, progress is infinitely
slower than it should be, and that the majority of children
do not yet get beyond the eighth grade (the statistics for
this country show that only one out of nineteen takes a
secondary course). "Philanthropists, social philosophers, and
friends of free institutions," he asks, "is that the fit educa-
tional outcome of a century of democracy in an undeveloped
country of immense natural resources ? Leaders and guides
of the people, is that what you think just and safe ? People
of the United States, is that what you desire and intend?"

In order not only to bring existing public schools up to the

"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 101

right standard, but to create new kinds of schools that are
badly needed, the plan suggested by Dr. Eliot would take
another billion or two. He advocates kindergartens and
further development of the new subjects that have recently
been added to the grammar school course; he opposes the
specialization of the studies of children for their life work
before the sixteenth or seventeenth year, favors complete
development of the high school as well as the manual train-
ing, mechanics, art, the evening and the vacation schools,
greater attention to physical education and development,
and, finally, the greatest possible extension and development
of our institutions of higher education. He also advocates
newer reforms, such as the employment of skilled physicians
in connection with the schools, the opening of public spaces,
country parks, beaches, city squares, gardens, or parkways
for the instruction of school children. He specifies in detail
the improvements that are needed in school buildings, shows
what is urgently demanded and is immediately practicable
in the way of increasing the number of teachers, paying them
better and giving them pensions, indicates the needed im-
provements in the administration of the school systems,
urges the development of departmental instruction through
several grades, and the addition of manual training to all the
public schools along with a better instruction in music and
drawing.

There are still other improvements in education which have
already been tested and found to produce the most valuable
results. Perhaps the most important ones besides those
demanded by Dr. Eliot are the providing of free or cheap
lunches for undernourished children, and the system,
already widespread in England and the other countries, of
furnishing scholarships to carry the brighter children of the
impecunious classes through the college, high school, and tech-
nical courses. Even this policy of scholarships would lead us
to full democracy in education only if by its means the child
of the poorest individual had exactly the same opportunities
as those of the richest. It is not enough that a few children
only should be so advanced; but that of impecunious children,
who constitute 90 per cent of the population, a sufficient number
should be advanced to fill 90 per cent of those positions, in indus-
try, government, and society, which require a higher education.

There is no doubt that this actual equality in the "battle
of life " was the expectation and intention of those who settled

102 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and built up the western part of the United States, as it has
been that of all the democracies of new countries. But this
reform alone would certainly require not one but several
billion dollars a year ; as much as all the other improvements
mentioned by Dr. Eliot put together. We may estimate,
then, that the application of the principle of democracy or
equality of opportunity to education in accordance with
the present national income, would require the immediate
expenditure of three or four billion dollars on the nation's
children of school age, or ten times the sum we now expend,
and a corresponding increase as the wealth of the nation
develops. This would be a considerable proportion of the
nation's income, but not too much to spend on the children,
who constitute nearly half the population and are at the age
where the money spent is most productive.

Here is a program for the coming generation which would
be indorsed by a very large part of the democrats of the past.
But nothing could make it more clear that political democ-
racy is bankrupt even in its new collective form, that it
has no notion of the method by which its own ideals are to
be obtained. For no reformer dreams that this perfectly
sensible and practicable program will be carried out until
there has been some revolutionary change in society. "I
know that some people will say that it is impossible to in-
crease public expenditure in the total, and therefore impos-
sible to increase it for the schools," says Dr. Eliot. "I deny
both allegations. Public expenditure has been greatly
increased within the last thirty years, and so has school
expenditure " (written in 1902). But Dr. Eliot doubtless
realizes that what he advocates for the present moment, the
expenditure of five times as much as we now invest in public
schools, at the present rate of progress, might not be accom-
plished in a century, and that by that time society might well
have attained a degree of development which would demand
five or ten times as much again. Dr. Eliot is well aware
of the opposition that will be made to his reform, but he has
not given the slightest indication how it is to be overcome.
The well-to-do usually feel obligated to pay for the private
education of their own children, and even where public
institutions are at their disposal they are forced to support
these children through all the years of study. This is expen-
sive, but this very expensiveness gives the children of the
well-to-do a practical monopoly of the opportunities which

"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 103

this education brings. How are they to be brought to favor,
and, since they are the chief taxpayers, to pay for the exten-
sion of these same opportunities to ten times the number
of children who now have them ?

In the meanwhile Dr. Eliot himself seems to have become
discouraged and to have abandoned his own ideal, for only
seven years after writing the above he came to advocate the
division of the whole national school system into three classes :
that for the upper class, that for the middle class, and that
for the masses of the people — and he even insisted that this
division is democratic if the elevation of the pupil from one
class to the other is made "easy." (5) Now democracy does
not require that the advance of the child of the poor be made
what is termed easy, but that he be given an equal opportunity
with the child of the rich as far as all useful and necessary edu-
cation is concerned. Democracy does not tolerate that in
education the children of the poor should be started in at the
bottom, while the children of the rich are started at the top.

Those few who do rise under such conditions only
strengthen the position of the upper classes as against that
of the lower. Tolstoi was right when he said that when an
individual rises in this way he simply brings another recruit
to the rulers from the ruled, and that the fact that this pas-
sage from one class to another does occasionally take place,
and is not absolutely forbidden by law and custom as in
India, does not mean that we have no castes. (6) Even in
ancient Egypt, it was quite usual, as in the case of Joseph,
to elevate slaves to the highest positions. This singling out
and promotion of the very ablest among the lower classes
may indeed be called the basis of every lasting caste system.
All those societies that depended on a purely hereditary
system have either degenerated or were quickly destroyed.
If then a ruling class promotes from below a number sufficient
only to provide for its own need of new abilities and new
blood, its power to oppress, to protect its privileges, and to
keep progress at the pace and in the direction that suits
it will only be augmented — and universal equality of oppor-
tunity will be farther off than before. Doubtless the num-
bers "State Socialism " will take up from the masses and equip
for higher positions will constantly increase. But neither
will the opportunities of these few have been in any way equal
to those of the higher classes, nor will even such opportunities
be extended to any but an insignificant minority.

104 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Nor does President Eliot's advocacy of class schools stand
as an isolated phenomenon. Already in America the devel-
opment of free secondary schools has been checked by the
far more rapid growth of private institutions. The very
classes of taxpayers who control city and other local govern-
ments and school boards are educating their own children
privately, and thus have a double motive for resisting the
further advance of school expenditure. As if the expense
of upkeep during the period of education were not enough of
a handicap, those few children of the wage earners who are
brave enough to attempt to compete with the children of
the middle classes are now subjected to the necessity of
attending inferior schools or of traveling impracticable
distances. The building of new high schools, for example,
was most rapid in the Middle West in the decades 1880-1899,
and in the Eastern States in the decade 1890-1900. But
within a few years after 1900 the rate of increase had fallen
in the Middle West to about one half, and in the East to
less than one third, of what it formerly had been. (7) It
might be thought that, the country being now well served
with secondary schools, the rate of growth must diminish.
This may be true of a part of the rural districts, but an exam-
ination of the situation or school reports of our large cities
will show how far it is from being true there.

In Great Britain the public secondary schools for the most
part and some of the primary schools, though supported
wholly or largely by public funds, charge a tuition fee. The
fact that a very small per cent of the children of the poor
are given scholarships which relieve them of this fee only
serves to strengthen the upper and middle classes, without
in any appreciable degree depriving them of their privileged
position. In London, for example, fees of from $20 to $40
are charged in the secondary schools, and their superinten-
dents report that they are attended chiefly by the children
of the "lower middle classes," salaried employees, clerks,
and shopkeepers, with comparatively few of the children of
the professional classes on the one hand or of the best-paid
workingmen on the other. An organized campaign is now
on foot in New York City also, among the taxpayers, to
introduce a certain proportion of primary pay schools, for
the frank purpose of separating the lower middle from the
working classes, and to charge fees in all secondary schools
so as to bring a new source of income and decrease the number

"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 105

of students and the amounts spent on the schools. This in
spite of the annual plea of Superintendent Maxwell for more
secondary schools, more primary teachers, and primary school
buildings. Instead of going in the direction indicated by
Dr. Eliot and preparing to spend four or five times the pres-
ent amount, there is a strong movement to spend less. And
nothing so hastens this reactionary movement as the tend-
ency, whether automatic or consciously stimulated, towards
class (or caste) education — such as Dr. Eliot and so many
other reformers now directly or indirectly encourage —
usually under the cloak of industrial education.

The most anti-social aspects of capitalism, whether in its
individualist or its collectivist form, are the grossly unequal
educational and occupational privileges it gives the young.
An examination of the better positions now being obtained
by men and women not yet past middle age will show, let
us say, that ten times as many prizes are going to persons
who were given good educational opportunities as to those
who were not. But as the children of those who can afford
such opportunities are not a tenth as numerous as the children
of the rest of the people, this would mean that the latter have
only a hundredth part of the former's opportunities. Under
this supposition, one tenth of the population secures ten
elevenths of the positions for which a higher education is
required. As a matter of fact, the existing inequality of
opportunity is undoubtedly very much greater than this,
and the unequal distribution of opportunities is visibly and
rapidly becoming still less equal. In 1910, of nineteen mil-
lion pupils of public and private schools in this country, only
one million were securing a secondary, and less than a third
of a million a higher, education. Here are some figures
gathered by the Russell Sage Foundation in its recent survey
of public school management. The report covers 386 of
the larger cities of the Union. Out of every 100 children
who enter the schools, 45 drop out before the sixth year;
that is, before they have learned to read English. Only 25 of
the remainder graduate and enter the high schools, and of these
but 6 complete the course.

The expense of a superior education, including upkeep
during the increasing number of years required, is rising many
times more rapidly than the income of the average man. At
the same time, both the wealth and the numbers of the well-
to-do are increasing in greater proportion than those of the

106 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

rest of the people. While the better places get farther and
farther out of the reach of the children of the masses, owing
to the overcrowding of the professions by children of the
well-to-do, the competition becomes ever keener, and the
poor boy or girl who must struggle not only against this
excessive competition, but also against his economic handi-
cap, confronts an almost superhuman task.

It is obvious that this tendency cannot be reversed, no
matter how rapidly the people's income is increased, unless
it rises more rapidly than that of the well-to-do. And this,
Socialists believe, has never happened except when the masses
obtained political power and made full use of it against the
class in control of industry and government.

No amount of material progress and no reorganization of
industry or government which does not promise to equalize
opportunity, — however rapid or even sensational it may be,
— is of the first moment to the Socialists of the movement.
Wages might increase 5 or 10 per cent every year, as profits
increase to-day ; hours might be shortened and the intensity
of labor lessened ; and yet the gulf between the classes might
be growing wider than ever. If society is to progress toward
industrial democracy, it is necessary that the people should
fix their attention, not merely on the improvement of their
own condition, but on their progress when compared with
that of the capitalist classes, i.e. when measured by present-
day civilization and the possibilities it affords.

No matter how fast wages increase, if profits increase faster,
we are journeying not towards social democracy, but towards a
caste society. Thus to insist that we must keep our eyes on
the prosperity of others in order to measure our own seems
like preaching envy or class hatred. But in social questions
the laws of individual morality are often reversed. It is
the social duty of every less prosperous class of citizens, their
duty towards the whole of the coming generation as well as
to their own children, to measure their own progress solely
by a standard raised in accordance with the point in evolu-
tion that society has attained. What would have been com-
parative luxury a hundred years ago it is our duty to view
as nothing less than a degrading and life-destroying poverty
to-day.

Opportunity is not becoming equal. The tendency is
in the opposite direction, and not all the reforms of "State
Socialism" promise to counteract it. The citizen owes it to

"EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 107

society to ask of every proposed program of change, "Will
it, within a reasonable period, bring equality of opportunity ? "
To rest satisfied with less — a so-called tendency of certain
reforms in the right direction may be wholly illusory — is
not only to abandon one's rights and those of one's children,
but to rob society of the only possible assurance of the maxi-
mum of progress.

CHAPTER VIII

"STATE SOCIALISM" as I have described it will doubtless
continue to be the guiding policy of governments during a
large part, if not all, of the present generation. Capitalism,
in this new collectivist form, must bring about extremely
deep-seated and far-reaching changes in society. And every
step that it takes in the nationalization of industry and the
appropriation of land rent would also be a step in Socialism,
provided the rents and profits so turned into the coffers of
the State were not used entirely for the benefit either of
industry or of the community as a whole, as it is now
constituted, but were reserved in part for the special benefit
of the less wealthy, less educated, and less advantageously placed,
so as gradually to equalize income, influence, and opportunity.

But what, as matter of fact, are the ways in which the new
revenues are likely to be used before the Socialists are either
actually or practically in control of the government ? First
of all, they will be used for the further development of indus-
try itself and of schemes which aid industry, as by affording
cheaper credit, cheaper transportation, cheaper lumber,
cheaper coal, etc., which will chiefly benefit the manufac-
turers, since all these raw materials and services are so much
more largely used in industry than in private consumption.

Secondly, the new sources of government revenue will be
used to relieve certain older forms of taxation. The very mod-
erately graduated income and inheritance taxes which are now
common, small capitalists have tolerated principally on the
ground that the State is in absolute need of them for essential
expenses. We may soon expect a period when the present
rapid expansion of this form of taxation as well as other
direct taxes on industry, building, corporations, etc., will
be checked somewhat by the new revenues obtained from the
profits of government enterprises and the taxation of ground
values. Indirect taxation of the consuming public in gen-
eral, through tariffs and internal revenue taxes, will also be

108

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM 109

materially lightened. As soon as new and larger sources
of income are created, the cry of the consumers for relief
will be louder than ever, and since a large part of consumption
is that of the capitalists in manufacture, the cry will be heard.
This will mean lower prices. But in the long run salaries and
wages accommodate themselves to prices, so that this reform,
beneficial as it may be, cannot be accepted as meaning,
for the masses, more than a merely temporary relief. A third
form of tax reduction would be the special exemption of the
poorer classes from even the smallest direct taxation. But as
employers and wage boards, in fixing wages, will take this
reduction into account, as well as the lower prices and rents,
such exemptions will effect no great or lasting change in the
division of the national income between capitalists and re-
ceivers of salaries and wages.

A third way in which the new and vastly increased incomes
of the national and local governments can be expended is
the communistic way, as in developing commercial and tech-
nical education, in protecting the public health, in building
model tenements, in decreasing the cost of traveling for
health or business, and in promoting all measures that are
likely to increase industrial efficiency and profits without too
great cost.

A fourth way in which the new revenue may be expended,
before the Socialists are in actual or practical control, would
be in somewhat increasing the wages and somewhat shorten-
ing the hours of the State and municipal employees, who will
soon constitute a very large proportion of the community.
Here again it is impossible to expect any but a Socialist
government to go very far. As I have shown, it is to be
questioned whether any capitalistic administration, however
advanced, would increase real wages (wages measured by their
purchasing power), except in so far as the higher wages will
result in a corresponding or greater increase in efficiency, and
so in the profits made from labor. And the same law applies
to most other governmental (or private) expenditures on
behalf of labor, whether in shortened hours, insurance,
improved conditions, or any other form.

The very essence of capitalist collectivism is that the share
of the total profits which goes to the ruling class should not
be decreased, and if possible should be augmented. In spite
of material improvements the economic gulf between the
classes, during the period it dominates, will either remain as

110 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

it is, or become wider and deeper than before. On the ground
of the health and ultimate working efficiency of the present
and future generation, hours may be considerably shortened,
and the labor of women and children considerably curtailed.
Insurance against death, old age, sickness, and accident
will doubtless be taken over by the government. Mothers
who are unable to take care of their children will probably
be pensioned, as now proposed in France, and many children
will be publicly fed in school, as in a number of the British
and Continental places. The most complete code of labor
legislation is practically assured ; for, as government owner-
ship extends, the State will become to some extent the model
employer.

A quarter of a century ago, especially in Great Britain
and the United States, but also in other countries, the method
of allaying discontent was to distract public attention from
politics altogether by stimulating the chase after private
wealth. But as private wealth is more and more difficult
to attain, this policy is rapidly replaced by the very opposite
tactics, to keep the people absorbed in the political chase
after the material benefits of economic reform. For this
purpose every effort is being used to stimulate political
interest, to popularize the measures of the new State capital-
ism, to foster public movements in their behalf, and finally
to grant the reforms, not as a new form of capitalism, but as
"concessions to public opinion." At present it is only the
most powerful of the large capitalists and the most radical
of the small that have fully adapted themselves to the new
policies. But this will cause no serious delay, for among
policies, as elsewhere, the fittest are surely destined to survive.

Ten years ago it would have been held as highly improbable
that we would enter into such a collectivist period in half a
century. Already a large part of the present generation
expect to see it in their lifetime. And the constantly acceler-
ated developments of recent years justify the belief of many
that we may find ourselves far advanced in "State Socialism"
before another decade has passed.

The question that must now be answered by the statesman
as opposed to the mere politician, by the publicist as opposed
to the mere journalist, is, not how soon the program of "State
Socialism" will be put into effect, but what is going to be
the attitude of the masses towards it. A movement exists
that is already expressing and organizing their discontent

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM 111

with capitalism in whatever form. It promises to fill this
function still more fully and vigorously in proportion as col-
lectivist capitalism develops. I refer to the international
revolutionary movement that finds its chief expression in the
federated Socialist parties. The majority of the best-known
spokesmen of this movement agree that social reform is
advancing ; yet most of them say, with Kautsky, that control
of the capitalists over industry and government is advancing
even more rapidly, partly by means of these very reforms,
so that the Machtverhaeltnisse, or distribution of political
and economic power between the various social classes, is
even becoming less favorable to the masses than it was before.
The one thing they feel is that no such capitalist society will
ever be willing to ameliorate the condition of the non-cap-
italists to such a degree that the latter will get an increasing
proportion of the products of industry or of the benefits of
legislation, or an increased influence over government. The
capitalists will never do anything to disturb radically the
existing balance of power.

While Socialists have not always conceded that the capital-
ists will themselves undertake, without compulsion, large
measures of political democracy and social reform, — even
of the capitalistic variety, — nearly all of the most influential
are now coming to base their whole policy on this now very
evident tendency, and some have done so for many years
past. For instance, it has been clear to many from the time
of Karl Marx that it would be necessary for capitalist society
itself to nationalize or municipalize businesses that become
monopolized, without any reference to Socialism or the
Socialists.

"These private monopolies have become unbearable,"
says Kautsky, "not simply for the wage workers, but for all
classes of society who do not share in their ownership,"
and he adds that it is only the weakness of the bourgeois
(the smaller capitalist) as opposed to capital (the large cap-
italist) that hinders him from taking effective action. In-
deed, one of the chief respects in which history has pursued
a somewhat different course from that expected by Marx
has been in the failure of capitalist society to attempt imme-
diately this solution of the trust problem through govern-
ment ownership. Marx expected that this attempt would
necessarily be made as soon as the monopolies reached an
advanced state, and that the resulting economic revolution

112 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

would develop into a Socialist revolution. But this monopo-
listic period has come, the trusts are rapidly dominating the
whole field of industry and government, and yet it seems im-
probable that they will be forced to any final compromise
with the small capitalist investors and consumers for some
years to come. In the meanwhile, no doubt, the process of
nationalization will begin, but too late to fulfill Marx's
expectation, for the large and small capitalists will have time
to become better united, and their combined control over
government will have had time to grow more secure than
ever. The new partnership of capitalism and the State will,
no doubt, represent the small capitalists as well as the large,
but there is no sign that the working people will be able to
take advantage of the coming transformation for any non-
capitalist purpose. Nor did Marx expect national ownership
to increase the relative strength of the workers unless it
was accompanied by a political revolution.

Another vast capitalist reform predicted by Socialists
since the Communist Manifesto (1847) is nationalization or
municipalization of the ground rent or unearned increment of
land. At first Kautsky and others were inclined to expect
that nothing would be done in this direction until the working
classes themselves achieved political power, but it has always
been seen from the days of Marx that the industrial capital-
ists had no particular reason for wishing to be burdened with
a parasitic class of landlords that weighed on their shoulders
as much as on those of the rest of the people. Not only do
industrial capitalists pay heavy rents to landlords, but the
rent paid by the wage worker also has to be paid indirectly
and in part by the industrial capitalist: "The quantity of
wealth that a landlord can appropriate from the capitalist
class becomes larger in proportion as the general demand for
land increases, in proportion as population grows, in propor-
tion as the capitalist class needs land, i.e. in proportion as
the capitalist system of production expands. In proportion
with all this, rent rises ; that is to say, the aggregate amount
of wealth increases which the landlord class can slice off —
either directly or indirectly — from the surplus that would
otherwise be grabbed by the capitalist class alone." (1)

The industrial capitalists, then, have very motive to put
an end to this kind of parasitism, and to use the funds se-
cured, through confiscatory taxation of the unearned incre-
ment of land, to lessen their own taxation, to nationalize

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM 113

those fundamental industries that can only be made in this
way to subserve the interests of the capitalist class as a whole
(instead of some part of it merely), and to undertake through
government those costly enterprises which are needed by all
industry, but which give too slow returns to attract the cap-
italist investor.

This enormous reform, in land taxation, which alone
would put into the hands of governments ultimately almost
a third of the capital of modern nations, was considered
by Marx, in all its early stages, as purely capitalistic, "a So-
dalistically-f ringed attempt to save the rule of capitalism, and to
establish it in fact on a still larger foundation at present." (2)
Indeed, I have shown in a previous chapter that radical
reformers who advocated this single-tax idea, along with the
nationalization and municipalization of monopolies, do so
with the conscious purpose of reviving capitalism and mak-
ing it more permanent, precisely as Marx says. The great
Socialist wrote the above phrase in 1881 (in a recently
published letter to Sorge of New York) after reading Henry
George's "Progress and Poverty," which had just appeared.
He calls attention to the fact that James Mill and other
capitalistic economists had long before recommended that
land rent should be paid to the State so as to serve as a sub-
stitute for taxes, and that he, himself, had advocated it in
the Manifesto of 1847 — among transitional measures.

Marx says that he and Engels "inserted this appropriation
of ground rent by the State among many other demands,"
which, as also stated in the Manifesto, "are self-contradic-
tory and must be such of necessity." He explains what he
means by this in the same letter. In the very year of the
Manifesto he had written (in his book against Proudhon)
that this measure was "a frank statement of the hatred felt
by the industrial capitalist for the landowner, who seems to
him to be a useless, unnecessary member in the organism of
Capitalist society." Marx demanded "the abolition of
property in land, and the application of all land rents to
public purposes," not because this is in any sense the smallest
installment of Socialism, but because it is a progressive capital-
istic measure. While it strengthens capitalism by removing
"a useless, unnecessary member," and by placing it "on a
still larger foundation than it has at the present," it also
matures it and makes it ready for Socialism — ready, that is
to say, as soon as the working people capture the government and

114 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

turn the capitalists out, but not a day sooner. (3) Until that
time even the most grandiose reform is merely "a Socialist-
ically-fringed attempt to save the rule of capitalism."

Other "transitional measures" mentioned by Marx and
Engels in 1847, some of which had already been taken up as
" Socialistically-f ringed attempts to save the rule of capital-
ism" even before their death were : —

The heavily graduated income tax.

The abolition of inheritance.

A government bank with an exclusive monopoly.

A partial nationalization of factories.

(No doubt, the part they would select would be that

operated by the trusts.)
Government cultivation of waste lands.

Here we have a program closely resembling that of "State
capitalism." It omits the important labor legislation for
increasing efficiency, since this was unprofitable under com-
petitive and extra-governmental capitalism, and in Marx's
time had not yet appeared ; e.g. the minimum wage, a shorter
working day, and workingmen's insurance. As Marx and
Engels mention, however, the substitution of industrial
education for child labor (one of the most important and typi-
cal of these reforms), they would surely have included other
measures of the same order, had they been practicable and
under discussion at the time.

There can be little doubt that Marx and Engels, in this
early pronunciamento, were purposely ambiguous in their
language. For example, they demand "the extension of
factories and instruments of production owned by the state."
This is plainly a conservatively capitalistic or a revolutionary
Socialist measure entirely according to the degree to which,
and the hands by which, it is carried out — and the same is
evidently true of the appropriation of land rent and the
abolition of inheritance. This is what Marx means when he
says that every such measure is "self-contradictory and must
be such of necessity." Up to a certain point they put capi-
talism on "a larger basis" ; if carried beyond that, they may,
in the right hands, become steps in Socialism.

Marx and Engels were neither able nor willing to lay out a
program which would distinguish sharply between measures
that would be transitional and those that would be Socialist
sixty or seventy years after they wrote, but merely gave con-

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM 115

crete illustrations of their policy; they stated explicitly that
such reforms would vary from country to country, and only
claimed for those they mentioned that they would be "pretty
generally applicable." Yet, understood in the sense in
which it was originally promulgated and afterwards ex-
plained, this early Socialist program still affords the
most valuable key we have as to what Socialism is, if we
view it on the side of its practical efforts rather than on
that of abstract theories. Marx and Engels recognize that
the measures I have mentioned must be acknowledged
as "insufficient and untenable," because, though they
involve "inroads on the rights of property," they do not go
far enough to destroy capitalism and establish a Socialistic
society. But they reassure their Socialistic critics by point-
ing out that these " insufficient" and "transitory" measures,
"in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, neces-
sitate further inroads on the old social order, and are indispen-
sable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of
production." (My italics.)

That is, "State Socialism" is indispensable as a basis
for Socialism, indeed necessitates it, provided Socialists look
upon "State Socialist" measures chiefly as transitory
means "to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class " ;
for this rise of the proletariat to the position of ruling class
is necessarily "the first step in the revolution of the working
class."

From the day of this first step the whole direction of social
evolution would be altered. For, while the Socialists expect to
utilize every reform of capitalist collectivism, and can only build
on that foundation, their later policy would be diametrically
opposed to it. A Socialist government would begin immediately
an almost complete reversal of the statesmanship of "State
Socialism." The first measure it would undertake would
be to begin at once to increase wages faster than the rate of in-
crease of the total wealth of the community. Secondly, within a few
years, it would give to the masses of the population, accord-
ing to their abilities, all the education needed to fill from the
ranks of the non-capitalistic classes a proportion of all the
most desirable and important positions in the community,
corresponding to their numbers, and would see to it that they
got these positions.

It is undoubtedly the opinion of the most representative fig-
ures of the international Socialist movement that there is not

116 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the slightest possibility that any of the non-Socialist reformers
of to-day or of the near future are following or will follow
any such policy, or even take the slightest step in that direc-
tion; and that there is nothing Socialists can do to force
such a policy on the capitalists until they are actually or
practically in power. Society may continue to progress, but
it is surely inconceivable to any close observer, as it is incon-
ceivable to the Socialists, that the privileged classes will
ever consent, without the most violent struggle, to a program
which, viewed as a whole, would lead, however gradually or
indirectly, to a more equitable distribution of wealth and
political power.

PART II
THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISM

CHAPTER I
"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT

THE Socialist movement must be judged by its acts, by the
decisions Socialists have reached and the reasoning they have
used as they have met concrete problems.

The Socialists themselves agree that first importance is to
be attached, not to the theories of Socialist writers, but to
the principles that have actually guided Socialist parties
and their instructed representatives in capitalist legislatures.
These and the proceedings of international and national
congresses and the discussion that constantly goes on within
each party, and not theoretical writings, give the only truthful
and reliable impression of the movement.

In 1900 Wilhelm Liebknecht, who up to the time of his
death was as influential as Bebel in the German Party,
pointed out that those party members who disavowed Social-
ist principles in their practical application were far more
dangerous to the movement than those who made wholesale
theoretical assaults on the Socialist philosophy, and that
political alliances with capitalist parties were far worse than
the repudiation of the teachings of Karl Marx. In his well-
known pamphlet No Compromise he showed that this fact
had been recognized by the German Party from the
beginning.

I have shown the Socialists' actual position through their
attitude towards progressive capitalism. An equally con-
crete method of dealing with Socialist actualities is to por-
tray the various tendencies within the movement. The
Socialist position can never be clearly defined except by
contrasting it with those policies that the movement has
rejected or is in the process of rejecting to-day. Indeed, no
Socialist policy can be viewed as at all settled or important
unless it has proved itself "fit," by having survived struggles

117

118 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

either with its rivals outside or with its opponents inside the
movement.

If we turn our attention to what is going on within the
movement, we will at once be struck by a world-wide sit-
uation. "State Socialism" is not only becoming the policy
of the leading capitalistic parties in many countries, but —
in a modified form — it has also become the chief preoccu-
pation of a large group among the Socialists. "Reformist"
Socialists view most of the reforms of "State Socialism" as
installments of Socialism, enacted by the capitalists in the
hope of diverting attention from the rising Socialist move-
ment.

To Marx, on the contrary, the first "step" in Socialism was
the conquest of complete political power by the Socialists.
"The proletariat," he wrote in the Communist Manifesto
"will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capi-
tal from the capitalists, to centralize all instruments of produc-
tion in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organized
as the ruling class." (My italics.) Here is the antithesis
both of "reformist" Socialism within the movement and of
"State Socialism" without. The working people are not
expected to gain more and more political power step by step
and to use it as they go along. It is only after gaining full
political supremacy by a revolution (peaceful or otherwise)
that they are to socialize industry step by step. Marx
and his successors do not advise the working people to
concentrate their efforts on the centralization of the instru-
ments of production in the hands of governments as they
now are (capitalistic), but only after they have become com-
pletely transformed into the tools of the working people
"organized as the ruling class," to use Marx's expression. (1)

The central idea of the "reformist" Socialists is, on the
contrary, that before Socialism has captured any govern-
ment, and even before it has become an imminent menace,
it is necessary that Socialists should take the lead in the work
of social reform, and should devote their energies very largely
to this object. It is recognized that capitalistic or non-
Socialist reformers have taken up many of the most urgent
reforms and will take up more of them, and that being polit-
ically more powerful they are in a better position to put them
into effect. But the "reformist" Socialists, far from allowing
this fact to discourage them, allege it as the chief reason why
they must also enter the field. The non-Socialist reformers,

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 119

they say, are engaged in a popular work, and the Socialists
must go in, help to bring about the reforms, and claim part
of the credit. They then propose to attribute whatever
success they may have gained, not to the fact that they also
have become reformers like the rest, but to the fact that they
happen to be Socialists. The non-Socialist reformers, they
say again, are gaining a valuable experience in government;
the Socialists must go and do likewise. Reforms which were
steps in capitalism thus become to them steps in Socialism.
It is not the fashion of "reformists" to try to claim that they
are very great steps — on the contrary, they usually belittle
them, but it is believed that agitation for such reforms as
capitalist governments allow, is the best way to gain the pub-
lic ear, the best kind of political practice, the most fruitful
mode of activity.

One of the leading American Socialist weeklies has made
a very clear and typical statement of this policy : —

"If we leave the field of achievement to the reformer, then it is going
to be hard to persuade people that reform is not sufficient. If Socialists
take every step forward as part of a general revolutionary program, and
never fail to point out that these things are but steps forward in
a stairway that mean nothing save as they lead to a higher stage
of society, then the Socialist movement will carry along with it all
those who are fighting the class struggle. The hopelessness of re-
form as a goal will become apparent when its real position in social
evolution is pointed out." (2)

The leading questions this proposed policy arouses will
at once come to the reader's mind : Will the capitalist re-
formers in control of national governments allow the Socialist
"reformists" to play the leading part in their own chosen
field of effort? If people tend to be satisfied with reform,
what difference does it make as to the ultimate political or
social ideals of those who bring it about ? If the steps taken
by reformers and "reformists" are the same, by what alchemy
can the latter transform them into parts of a revolutionary
program ?

Mr. Simons, nevertheless, presents this "reformism" as
the proper policy for the American Party at its present
stage : —

"It has become commonplace," he says, "to say that the Socialist
movement of the United States has entered upon a new stage, and
that with the coming of many local victories and not a few in State

120 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and nation, Socialist activity must partake of the character of prep-
aration for the control of society.

"Yet our propaganda has been slow to reflect this change. This
is natural. For more than a generation the important thing was to
advertise Socialism and to inculcate a few doctrinal truths. This
naturally developed a literature based on broad assertions, sensa-
tional exposures, vigorous denunciations, and revival-like appeals
that resulted in sectarian organization.

"It has been hard to break away from this stage. It is easier to
make a propaganda of ' sound and fury ' than of practical achieve-
ment. Once the phrases have been learned, it is much simpler to
issue a manifesto than to organize a precinct. It always requires
less effort to talk about a class struggle than to fight it ; to defy the
lightning of international class rule than to properly administer
a township. Yet, if Socialism is inevitable, if the Socialist Party is
soon to rule in State and nation, then it is of the highest importance
that Socialists should know something of the forces with which they
are going to deal ; something of the lines of evolution which they
are going to further ; something of the government which they are
going to administer; something of the task which they profess to
be eager to accomplish."

It might seem that, after the first stage has been passed,
the next promising way to carry Socialism forward, the way
actually to "fight" the class struggle and to achieve something
practical is, as Mr. Simons says, to talk less and to go in and
"administer a township." Revolutionary Socialists agree
that advertising, the teaching of a few basic doctrines, emo-
tional appeals, and the criticism of present society have
hitherto taken up the principal share of the Socialist agita-
tion, and that all these together are not sufficient to enable
Socialists to achieve their aim, or even to carry the move-
ment much farther. They agree that activity is the best
teacher and that the class struggle must be actually fought.
But they propose other activities and feel that a whole inter-
mediate stage of Socialist evolution, including the capture
of national governments, lies between the Socialist agitation
of the past and any administration of a township that can do
anything to bring recruits to Socialism and not merely to
"State Socialist" reform.

This is the view of the revolutionary majority of the inter-
national movement. But the "reformist" minority is both
large and powerful, and since it draws far more recruits than
does the revolutionary majority from the ranks of the book
educated and capitalistic reformers, its spokesmen and writers

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 121

attract a disproportionately large share of attention in capi-
talistic and reform circles, and thus give rise to widespread
misunderstanding as to the position of the majority.

Not only are both the more or less Socialistic parties in
Great Britain and the Labour parties of the British colonies
"reformist" to the extent that they are either entirely outside
or practically independent of the international movement,
but the parties of Belgium, Italy, and South Germany have,
for a number of years, concentrated their attention almost
exclusively on such reforms as the capitalist governments
of their countries are likely to allow to be enacted — the
dominant idea being to obtain all that can be obtained for
the working classes at the present moment, even when, for
this purpose, it becomes necessary to subordinate or to com-
promise entirely the plans and hopes of the future. And it
is only within the last year or two that the revolutionary
wing in these last-named countries has begun to grow rapidly
again and promises to regain control.

There can be no doubt that Socialist "reformism" has
become very widespread. President Gompers of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, who had every facility of meeting
European Socialists and unionists on a recent tour, made
some observations which are by no means without a certain
foundation. (3) He says that he talked to these people about
Socialism and, though they all knew "the litany, service,
and invocation" and the Socialist text for the coming revo-
lution, they preserved this knowledge for their speech
making, while in conversation it all faded away into the misty
realms of the imagination. "Positively," writes Mr. Gom-
pers, "I never found one man in my trip ready to go further
into constructive Socialism than to repeat perfunctorily its
time-worn generalities. On the other hand, I met men whom
I knew years ago, either personally or through correspondence
or by their work, as active propagandists of the Socialists'
theoretical creed, who are now devoting their energies to
one or other of the practical forms of social betterment —
trade unionism, cooperation, legal protection to the workers
— and who could not be moved to speak of utopianism [Mr.
Gompers's epithet for Socialism], " It is doubtless true, as
Mr. Gompers says, that the individuals he questioned have
practically abandoned their Socialism, even though they
remain members of the Socialist parties. For if such activ-
ities as he mentions could be claimed as "Socialism,"

122 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

then there is very little public work an intelligent and honest
workingman can undertake, no matter how conservative
it may be, which is not to go by that name.

The chief characteristic of the reformists is, indeed, frankly
to claim, either that all the capitalist-collectivist reforms of
the period are Socialist in origin, or that they cannot be put
into execution without Socialist aid, or that such reforms
are enacted only as concessions, for fear that Socialism would
otherwise sweep everything before it.

Rev. Carl D. Thompson, formerly a Socialist member of
the Wisconsin Legislature, and now Town Clerk of Mil-
waukee, for example, claims Millerand as a Socialist minister,
though the French Socialist Party agreed by an almost
unanimous vote that he is not to be so considered, and attrib-
utes to this minister a whole series of reforms in which he
was only a single factor among many others. Many im-
portant legislative changes which have taken place in Italy
since 1900, Mr. Thompson accredits to the opportunist
Socialist leader, Turati, with his handful of members of the
chamber, though it is certain that even at the present moment
the Socialists have not yet arrived at a position where they
can claim that they are shaping governmental action as
strongly as their Radical allies. Mr. Thompson states that
the "Socialist Independent Labour Party" of Great Britain
had thirty-four representatives in Parliament at a time when
the larger non-Socialist Labour Party, which included it, had
only this number. He claimed that a majority of this latter
party were Socialists, when, as a matter of fact, only a minor-
ity were members of any Socialist party even in the ultra-
moderate sense in which the term is employed in England, and
he accredits all the chief reforms brought about by the
Liberal government to this handful of "Socialists," including
even the old age pensions which were almost unanimously
favored by the old parties. (4) He even lists among his
signs of the progress of Socialism the fact that, at the time
of writing, fifty-nine governments owned their railways,
while a large number had instituted postal savings banks.

The same tendency to claim everything good as Socialism
is very common in Great Britain. Even the relatively
advanced Socialist, Victor Grayson, avoids the question
whether there is any social reform which is not Socialism, (5)
and it seems to be the general position of British Socialists
that every real reform is Socialism — more or less.

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 123

August Bebel, on the contrary, is quoted as saying, "It
is not a question of whether we achieve this or that; for us the
principal thing is that we put forward certain claims which
no other party can put forward." The great German Socialist
sees clearly that if Socialism is to distinguish itself from the
other parties it must rest its claims solely on demands which
are made exclusively by Socialists. This is what those who
claim that every reform is Socialism, or is best promoted by
Socialists, fail to see. By trying to make the word, "Social-
ism" mean everything, they inevitably make it mean nothing.

It is true that for a. time the very advertisement of the
word "Socialism," by this method, and even the widest and
loosest use of Socialist phrases had the effect of making people
think about Socialist principles. But this cannot be long
continued before the public begins to ask questions concern-
ing the exact meaning of such expressions as applied to every-
day life. The Socialist paper, Justice, of London, urged that
"the very suggestion that any of the Liberal members of
Parliament were connected with the Socialist movement
created a more profound impression than all they ever said
or did." This is doubtless true, but when the novelty has
once worn off of this situation it is what so-called Socialists
do that alone will count.

For example, the leading reformist Socialist of Great
Britain, Mr. J. R. MacDonald, wishes to persuade the
Socialists of America to carry on "a propaganda of immedi-
ately practicable changes, justified and enriched by the fact
that they are the realization of great ideals." (6) Such a re-
duction of the ideal to what is actually going on, or may
be immediately brought about, makes it quite mean-
ingless. Evidently the immediately practicable changes
that Mr. MacDonald suggests are themselves his ideal, and
what he calls the ideal consists rather of phrases and enthusi-
asms that are useful, chiefly, for the purpose of advertising
his Party and creating enthusiasm for it.

The underlying motive of the "reformists" when they
claim non-Socialist reforms as their own, and relegate prac-
tically all distinctively Socialist principles and methods to
the vague and distant future, is undoubtedly their belief
that reforms rather than Socialism appeal to the working
class.

"The mass of workingmen will support the Socialist
Party," a Socialist reformer wrote recently, "not because

124 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

they are being robbed under capitalism, but because they
are made to understand that this party can be relied upon to
advance certain measures which they know will benefit them
and their families here and now.

"The constructive Socialist believes that the cooperative
commonwealth will be realized, not by holding it up in
contrast to capitalism, — but only by the working class
fighting first for this thing, then for that thing, until private
enterprise is undermined by its rewards being eaten up by
taxes and its incentive removed by the inroads made upon
profits."

The working people, that is, are not intelligent enough to
realize that they are "robbed under capitalism," and are
not getting their proportionate share of the increase of wealth,
nor courageous enough to take up the fight to overthrow
capitalism ; they appreciate only small advances from day to
day, and every step by which "private capitalism" is replaced
by State action is such an advance, while these advances are
to be secured chiefly through a Socialist Party. In a word,
the Socialist Party is to ask support because it can accomplish
more than other parties for social reform under capitalism,
which at the present period means "State Socialism."

For while "reformist" Socialists are taking a position
nearly identical with that of the non-Socialist reformers,
the latter are coming to adopt a political policy almost
identical with that of the reformist Socialists. I have
noted that one of America's leading economists advises
all reformers, whether they are Socialists or not, to join the
Socialist Party. Since both "reformist" Socialists and "So-
cialistic" reformers are interested in labor legislation, public
ownership, democratic political reforms, graduated taxation,
and the governmental appropriation of the unearned incre-
ment in land, why should they not walk side by side for a
very considerable distance behind "a somewhat red banner,"
and " without troubling themselves about the unlike goals "
— as Professor John Bates Clark recommends? The
phrases of Socialism have become so popular that their
popularity constitutes its chief danger. At a time when so
many professed anti-Socialists are agreeing with the New
York Independent that, though it is easy to have too much
Socialism, at least "we want more" than we have, it becomes
exceedingly difficult for non-Socialists to learn what Socialism
is and to distinguish it from innumerable reform movements.

"STATE SOCIALISM': WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 125

Less than a decade ago the pros and cons of Socialism were
much debated. Now it is usually only a question of Social-
ism sooner or later, more or less. Socialism a century or
two hence, or in supposed installments of a fraction of a per
cent, is an almost universally popular idea. For the Social-
ists this necessitates a revolutionary change in their tactics,
literature, and habit of thought. They were formerly forced
to fight those who could not find words strong enough to
express their hostility; they are rapidly being compelled
to give their chief attention to those who claim to be friends.
The day of mere repression is drawing to a close, the day of
cajolery is at hand.

Liebknecht saw what was happening years ago, and, in
one of the most widely circulated pamphlets the Socialists
have ever published (No Compromise), issued an impressive
warning to the movement : —

"The enemy who comes to us with an open visor we face with
a smile; to set our feet upon his neck is mere play for us. The
stupidly brutal acts of violence of police politicians, the outrages of
anti-Socialist laws, penitentiary bills — these only arouse feelings
of pitying contempt ; the enemy, however, that reaches out the hand
to us for a political alliance, and intrudes himself upon us as a friend
and a brother, — him and him alone have we to fear.

" Our fortress can withstand every assault — it cannot be stormed
nor taken from us by siege — it can only fall when we ourselves open
the doors to the enemy and take him into our ranks as a fellow comrade."

"We shall almost never go right," says Liebknecht, "if
we do what our enemies applaud." And we find, as a matter
of fact, that the enemies of Socialism never fail to applaud
any tendency of the party to compromise those acting prin-
ciples that have brought it to the point it has now reached.
For Liebknecht shows that the power which now causes a
Socialist alliance to be sought after in some countries even
by Socialism's most bitter enemies would never have arisen
had the party not clung closely to its guiding principle, the
policy of "no compromise."

There is no difficulty in showing, from the public life and
opinion of our day, how widespread is this spirit of political
compromise or opportunism; nor in proving that it enters
into the conduct of many Socialists. Such an opposition
to the effective application of broad and far-sighted plans
to practical politics is especially common, for historical
reasons, in Great Britain and the United States. In this

126 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

country it has been especially marked in Milwaukee from
the earliest days of the Socialist movement there. In 1893
the Milwaukee Vorwaerts announced that "if you demand too
much at one time you are likely not to get anything," and
that "nothing more ought to be demanded but what is
attainable at a given time and under given circumstances." (7)
It will be noticed that this is a clear expression of a principle
of action diametrically opposite to that adopted by the inter-
national movement as stated by Bebel and Liebknecht.
Socialists are chiefly distinguished from the other parties
by the fact that they concentrate their attention on demands
beyond "what is attainable at a given time and under given
circumstances." They might attempt to distinguish them-
selves by claiming that they stand for the ultimate goal of
Socialism, though their immediate program is the same as that
of other parties, but any politician can do that — as has been
shown recently by the action of Briand, Millerand, Ferri, and
other former Socialists in France and Italy — and the day
seems near when hosts of politicians will follow their example.

Any static or dogmatic definition of Socialism, like any
purely idealistic formulation, no matter how revolutionary
or accurate it may be, necessarily invites purely opportu-
nist methods. A widely accepted static definition declares
that Socialism is "the collective ownership of the means of
production and distribution under democratic management."
As an ultimate ideal or a theory of social evolution, this is
accepted also by many collectivist opponents of Socialism,
and may soon be accepted generally. The chief possibility
for a difference of opinion among most practical persons,
whether Socialists or not, must come from the questions :
How soon ? By what means ?

Evidently such a social revolution is to be achieved only
by stages. What are these stages? Many are tempted
to give the easy answer, "More and more collectivism and
more and more democracy." But progress in political
democracy, if it came first, might be accompanied by an
artificial revivial of small-scale capitalism, and a new majority
made up largely of contented farmer capitalists might put
Socialism farther off than it is to-day. Similarly, if install-
ments of collectivism came first, they might lead us in the
direction of the Prussia of to-day. And finally, even a
combination of democracy and collectivism, up to a certain
point, might produce a majority composed in part of small

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 127

capitalists and favored government employees. Collectivist
democracy completed or far advanced would insure the
coming of Socialism. But a policy that merely gave us more
collectivism plus more democracy, might carry us equally
well either towards Socialism or in the opposite direction.
The ultimate goal of present society does not give us a ready-
made plan of action by a mathematical process of dividing
its attainment into so many mechanical stages.

A very similar political shibboleth, often used by Party
Socialists, is " Let the nation own the trusts." Let us assume
that the constitution of this country were made as democratic
as that of Australia or Switzerland, and the suffrage made
absolutely universal (as to adults). Let us assume, moreover,
that the " trusts," including railways, public service corpo-
rations, banks, mines, oil, and lumber interests, the steel-
making and meat-packing industries, and the few other
important businesses where monopolies are established, were
owned and operated by governments of this character.
Taken together with the social and labor reforms that would
accompany such a regime, this would be "State Socialism,"
but it would not necessarily constitute even a step towards
Socialism — and this for two reasons.

The industries mentioned employ probably less than a third
of the population, and, even if we add other government
employments, the total would be little more than a third.
The majority of the community would still be divided among
the owners or employees of the competitive manufacturing
establishments, stores, farms, etc., — and the professional
classes. With most of these the struggle of Capital and
Labor would continue and, since they are in a majority, would
be carried over into the field of government, setting the higher
paid against the more poorly paid employees, as in the Prussia
of to-day.

And, secondly, even if we supposed that a considerable
part or all of the government employees received what they
felt to be, on the whole, a fair treatment from the govern-
ment, and if these, together with shopkeepers, farm owners,
or lessees, and satisfied professional and salaried men, made
up a majority, we would still be as far as ever from a social,
economic, or industrial democracy. What we would have
would be a class society, based on a purely political democ-
racy, and economically, on a partly private (or individualist)
and partly public (or collectivist) capitalism.

128 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"Equal opportunities for all" would also mean Socialism.
But equal opportunities for a limited number, no matter
if that number be much larger than at present, may merely
strengthen capitalism by drawing the more able of the
workers away from their class and into the service of capital-
ism. Or opportunities more equal for all, without a com-
plete equalization, may merely increase the competition of
the lower classes for middle-class positions and so secure
to the capitalists cheaper professional service. So-called
steps towards equal opportunities, even if rapid enough
to produce a very large surplus of trained applicants for
whom capitalism fails to provide and so increase the army of
malcontents, may simply delay the day of Socialism.

I have spoken of Socialists whose underlying object is oppor-
tunistic— to obtain immediate results in legislation no matter
how unrelated they may be to Socialism. Others are im-
pelled either by an inactive idealism, or by attachment to
abstract dogma for its own sake. Their custom is in the one
instance to make the doctrine so rigid that it has no imme-
diate application, and in the other to "elevate the ideal" so
high, to remove it so far into the future, that it is scarcely
visible for the present-day purposes, and then to declare
that present-day activity, even if theoretically subject to
an ideal or a doctrine, must be guided also by quite other
and "practical" principles, which are never clearly denned
and sometimes are scarcely mentioned. Mr. Edmond Kelly,
for instance, puts his "Collectivism Proper," or Socialism,
so far into the future that he is forced to confess that it
will be attained only "ultimately," or perhaps not at all,
while "Partial Collectivism may prove to be the last stage
consistent with human imperfection." (8) He acknowledges
that this Partial Collectivism ("State Socialism") is not
the ideal, and it is evident that his ideal is too far ahead or
too rigid or theoretical, to have any connection with the ideals
of the Socialist movement, which arise exclusively out of
actual life.

This opportunism defends itself by an appeal to the "evo-
lutionary" argument, that progress must necessarily be
extremely slow. Progress in this view, like Darwin's varia-
tions, takes place a step at a time, and its steps are infini-
tesimally small. The Worker of Brisbane, Australia, says:
"The complicated complaint from which society suffers
can only be cured by the administration of homeopathic

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE .MOVEMENT 129

doses. . . . Inculcate Socialism? Yes, but grab all you
can to be going on with. Preach revolutionary thoughts ?
Yes, but rely on the ameliorative method. . . . The minds
of men are of slow development, and we must be content,
we fear, to accomplish our revolution piecemeal, bit by bit,
till a point is come to when, by accumulative process, a series
of small changes amounts to the Great Change. The most
important revolutions are those that happen quietly without
anything particularly noticeable seeming to occur."

What is a Great Change depends entirely, in the revolution-
ist's view, on how rapidly it is brought about, and "revolu-
tionary thoughts" are empty abstractions unless accompanied
by revolutionary methods. Once it is assumed that there
is plenty of time, the difference between the conservative
and the radical disappears. For even those who have the
most to lose realize in these days the inevitability of "evo-
lution." The radical is not he who looks forward to great
changes after long periods of time, but he who will not tolerate
unnecessary delay — who is unwilling to accept the so-called
installments or ameliorations offered by the conservative
and privileged (even when considerable) as being satisfactory
or as necessarily contributing to his purpose at all. The radi-
cal spirit is rather that of John Stuart Mill, when he said,
"When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a
people, small means do not merely produce small effects;
they produce no effect at all."

Some -political standard and quantitative measure is as
necessary to social progress as similar standards are neces-
sary in other relations. If the political standard of the
Socialists is so low as to regard social reform programs which
on the whole are more helpful to the capitalists than to other
classes — and therefore "produce no effect at all" as far
as the Socialist purpose is concerned — as if they were
concessions, then it follows naturally that the Socialists will
be ready to pay a price for such concessions. They will
not only view as a relative gain over the capitalists measures
which are primarily aimed at advancing capitalist interests,
but they will inevitably be ready at a price to relax to some
extent the intensity of their opposition to other measures that
are capitalistic and antipopular. For instance, if old age
pensions are considered by the workers to be an epoch-making
reform and a concession, they may be granted by the capital-
ists all the more readily. But if thus overvalued, advantage

130 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

will be taken of this feeling, and they will in all probability
be accompanied by restrictions of the rights of labor organiza-
tions. On the other hand, if such pensions, however desir-
able, are considered as a reform which will result indirectly
in great savings to the capitalist classes, to public and private
charitable institutions, to employers, etc., then the Socialists
will accept them and, if possible, hasten their enactment,
— but, like the French, 'will refuse to pay for them out of
their own pockets (even through indirect taxation, as the
British workingmen were forced to do) and will allow them
neither to be used as a cloak for reaction, nor as a substitute
for more fundamental reforms.

In other words, a rational political standard would teach
that a certain measure of political progress is normal in
capitalist society as a result of the general increase of wealth
and the general improvement in political and economic or-
ganization, especially now that the great change to State
capitalism is taking place; while reforms of an entirely
different character are needed if there is to be any relative
advance of the political and economic power of the masses,
any tendency that might lead in the course of a reasonable
period of time to economic and social democracy.

"A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this
world should be the main object of all those who conduct
human affairs," said De Tocqueville. The economic progress
and political reforms of this capitalistic age are doubtless
bringing us nearer to the day when a new and fair division
of goods and rights can take place, and they will make the
great transformation easier when it comes, but this does not
mean that in themselves they constitute even a first step
in the new dispensation. That they do is denied by all the
most representative Socialists from Marx to Bebel.

The most bitter opponents of Socialism, like its most
thoroughgoing advocates, have come to see that the whole
character of the movement has grown up from its unwilling-
ness to compromise the aggressive tactics indispensable for
the revolutionary changes it has in view, until it has become
obvious that, just as Socialism as a social movement is the op-
posite pole to State capitalism, so Socialism as a social method
is the opposite pole to opportunism.

CHAPTER II
"REFORMISM" IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND BELGIUM

THE Socialist parties in Italy, Belgium, and France, where
"reformism" is strong, are progressing less rapidly than the
Socialists of these countries had reason to expect, and far less
rapidly than in other countries. It would seem that in these
cases the same cause that drives the movement to abandon
aggressive tactics also checks its numerical growth.

For example, it is a matter of principle among Socialists
generally to contest every possible elected position and to
nominate candidates in every possible district. The revo-
lutionary French Socialist, Jules Guesde, even stated to the
writer that if candidates could be run by the party in every
district of France, and if the vote could in this way be increased,
he would be willing to see the number of Socialists in Parlia-
ment reduced materially, even to a handful — the object
being to teach Socialism everywhere, and to prepare for future
victories by concentrating on a few promising districts
rather than to make any effort to become a political factor,
at the present moment. Similarly, August Bebel declared
that he would prefer that in the elections of 1912 the Socialists
should get 4,000,000 votes and 50 Reichstag members rather
than 3,000,000 votes and 100 members. In the latter case,
of course, the Socialist members would have been elected
largely on the second ballot by the votes of non-Socialists.

The policy actually carried out in both Italy and France
has of late been exactly the opposite to that recommended
by Guesde and Bebel. In the elections of 1909, the Socialist
Party of Italy put up 114 less candidates for Parliament than
they had in the election of 1904, while the number of candi-
dates nominated in France was 50 less in 1910 than it had
been in 1906. The consequence was that the French Party
received an increase of votes less absolutely than that gained
by the conservative republicans and scarcely greater than
that of the radicals, while in Italy the Socialists actually cast
a smaller percentage of the total vote in 1909 than they did
in 1904, while the party membership materially decreased.

131

132 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

This policy had a double result; it sent more Socialists
to the Parliaments, in each case increasing the number of
members by about 50 per cent ; on the other hand, it helped
materially those radical and rival parties most nearly related
to the Socialists, for in many districts where the latter had
withdrawn their candidates these parties necessarily received
the Socialist vote. A vast field of agitation was practically
deserted, and even when the agitation was carried on, the
distinction between the Socialist Party and the parties it
had favored, and which in turn favored it, became less
marked, and the chances of the spread of Socialism in the
future were correspondingly diminished.

In France it is this policy which has brought forward the
so-called " independent Socialists " of the recent Briand minis-
try. Being neither Socialists nor "Radicals," they are in the
best position to draw advantages from the "rapprochement"
of these forces, and it was thus that Millerand came into the
ministry in 1900, that Briand became prime minister in 1910,
and Augagneur minister in 1911. These are among the most
formidable opponents of the Socialist movement in France
to-day. It will seem from this and many other instances
that the opportunist policy which leads at first to a show of
success, later results in a weakening of the immediate as
well as the future possibilities of the movement.

The opportunist policy leads not only to an abandonment
of Socialist principle, an outcome that can never be finally
determined in any case, but sometimes to an actual betrayal
or desertion, visible to all eyes, as, for instance, when Ferri
left the movement in Italy, or Briand and Millerand in France.
That such desertions must inevitably result from the looseness
taught by "reformist" tactics is evident. Yet all through
Briand's early political career, Jaures was his intimate
associate, and even after the former had forsaken the party,
the latter confessed that, like the typical opportunist, he had
still expected to find in Briand's introductory address as
minister "reasons for hoping for the progress of social jus-
tice."

The career of Briand is typical. "One must understand
how to manage principles," he had said in 1900 at the very
time he was making the revolutionary declarations I
shall quote (in favor of the general strike and against the
army). Two years later when he made his first speech in the
Chamber, the conservative "Temps" said that Briand was

" REFORMISM '! 133

"ministrable" ; that is, that he was good material for some
future capitalistic ministry. Now Briand was making in this
speech what appeared to be a very vigorous attack against
the government and capitalism, but, like some prominent
Socialists to-day, he had succeeded in doing it in such a way
that he allowed the more far-seeing of the capitalistic enemy
to understand clearly what his underlying principles were. (1)

At his first opportunity he became connected with the
government, and justified this step on the ground of "his
moral attitude," since he was the proposer of the famous
bill for separating the Church and the State. He was imme-
diately excluded from the party, since at the time of Mille-
rand's similar step a few years before the party had reached
the definite conclusion that Socialists should not be allowed
to participate in their opponent's administrations.

When Briand became minister, and later (in 1909) prime
minister, he did not fail at once to realize the worst fears
of the Socialists, elevating military men and naval officers
to the highest positions, and promoting that minister who had
been most active in suppressing the post office strike to the
head of the department of justice. So-called collectivist
reforms that were introduced while he was minister, like
the purchase of the Western Railway, were carried through,
according to conservative Socialists like Jaures, with a loss
of 700,000,000 francs to the State. So that now Jaures, who
had done so much to forward Millerandism and Briandism
felt obliged to propose a resolution condemning Briand and
Millerand and Viviani as traitors who had allowed themselves
to be used "for the purpose of 'capitalism.' '

"' Socialistic' ministers," says Rappoport, "have fallen
below the level of progressive capitalistic governments. No
'Socialistic ' minister has done near so much for democracy
as honorable but narrow-minded democrats like Combes.
' Socialistic ' ministers have before anything else sought the
means of keeping themselves in office. In order to make
people forget their past, they are compelled to give con-
tinuously new proofs of their zeal for the government."

In France, where strong radical, democratic, and "State
Socialist" parties already exist, ready to absorb those who
put reform before Socialism, the likelihood that such deser-
tions will lead to any serious division of the party seems small,
especially since the Toulouse Congress, when a platform was
adopted unanimously. Of course, the leading factor in this

134 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

platform was Jaur&s, who stands as strongly for a policy of
unity and conciliation within the party as he has for an
almost uninterrupted conciliation and cooperation with the
more or less radical forces outside of it.

If Jaur6s was able to get the French Party to adopt this
unanimous program, it was because he is not the most extreme
of reformists, and because he has hitherto placed party loyalty
before everything. In the same way Bebel, voting on nearly
every occasion with the revolutionists, is able to hold the
German Party together because he is occasionally on the re-
formist side, as in a case to be mentioned below. JaurSs looks
forward, for instance, to a whole series of "successful general
strikes intervening at regular intervals," and even to the final
use of a great revolutionary general strike, whenever it looks
as if the capitalists can be finally overthrown and the govern-
ment taken into Socialist hands — though he certainly con-
siders that the day for such a strike is still many years off.
Nor does he hesitate to extend the hand of Socialist fellow-
ship to the most revolutionary Socialists and labor unionists
of his country, though he says to them, "The more revolu-
tionary you are, the more you must try to bring into the
united movement not only a minority, but the whole working
class." He says he is not against revolution, or the general
strike, but that he is against "a caricature of the general
strike and an abortive revolution."

It is only by actions, however, that men or parties may
be judged, and though JaurSs has occasionally been found
with the revolutionists, in most cases he acts with their rivals
and opponents, the reformists, and in fact is the most eminent
Socialist reformer the world has produced. No one will
question that there are Socialists who are exclusively inter-
ested in reform at the present period, not because they are
opposed to revolution, but because no greater movements
are taking place at the present moment or likely to take place
in the immediate future — and Jaure^s may be one of these.
But it is very difficult, even impossible, to distinguish by any
external signs, between such persons and those for whom the
idea of anything beyond the reforms of "State Socialism"
is a mere ideal, which concerns almost exclusively the next
or some future generation. Many of those who were form-
erly JaureVs most intimate associates, like the ministers
Briand and Millerand, the recent ministers Augagneur and
Viviani, and many others, have deserted the Party and are

" REFORMISM " 135

now proving to be its most dangerous opponents, while
several other deputies, who are still members like Brousse,
recently Mayor of Paris, are accused by a large part of
the organization of taking a very similar position. Surely
this shows that, even if Jaur&s himself could be trusted and
allowed to advocate principles and tactics so agreeable to
the rivals and enemies of Socialism, there are certainly few
other persons who can be safely left in such a compromising
position.

In view of these great betrayals on the part of JaureVs
associates, the mere fact that his own position towards the
Party has usually been correct in the end — after the majority
have shown him just how far he can go — and will doubtless
remain technically correct, becomes of entirely secondary
importance. He has openly and repeatedly encouraged and
aided those individuals and parties which later became the
chief obstacles in the way of Socialist advance, as other
Socialists had predicted. The result is, not that the Socialist
Party has ceased to grow, but that a large part of the enthu-
siasm for Socialism, largely created by the party, has gone
to elect so-called "Independent Socialists" to the Chamber
and to elevate to the control of the government men like
Briand, who, it was agreed by Socialists and anti-Socialists
alike, was the most formidable enemy the Socialists have
had for many years.

The program unanimously adopted by the French at
the Congress of Toulouse must be viewed in the light of
this internal situation. "The Socialist Party, the party
of the working class and of the Social Revolution," it begins,
"seeks the conquest of political power for the emancipation
of the proletariat [working class] by the destruction of the
capitalist regime and the suppression of classes." The
goal of Socialism could not be more succinctly expressed
than in these words: "The destruction of the capitalist
regime and the suppression of classes." Any party that lives
up to this preamble in letter and spirit can scarcely stray
from the Socialist road.

"It is the party which is most essentially, most actively
reformist," continues another section, "the only one which
can push its action on to total reform ; the only one which
can give full effect to each working class demand ; the only
one which can make of each reform, of each victory, the
starting point and basis of more extended demands and bolder

136 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

conquests. ..." Here we have the plank on which Jaur£s
undoubtedly laid the greatest weight, and it was supported
unanimously partly because of the necessity of party unity.
For this is as much as to say that no reform will ever be
brought to a point that wholly satisfies the working people
except through a working class government. But it can-
not be denied that there are certain changes of very great
importance to the working people, like those mentioned in
previous chapters, which are at the same time even more
valuable to the capitalists, and would be carried out to the
end even if there were no Socialists in existence. If the
revolutionary wing of the French Party once conceded to
capitalism itself this possibility of bringing about certain
reforms, they would be in a position effectively to oppose
the reformist tactics of Jaures within the Party. By giving
full credit to the semi-democratic and semi-capitalistic reform
parties for certain measures, they would go as far as he does in
the direction of conciliation and common sense in politics ;
by denying the possibility of the slightest cooperation with
non-Socialists on other and still more important questions,
they could constantly intensify the political conflict, and
since Jaures is a perpetual compromiser, put him in the mi-
nority in every contested vote within the party. By attacking
the capitalists blindly and on all occasions they have created
the necessity of a conciliator — the role that Jaurds so ably
and effectively fills.

But, however friendly the Toulouse program may have
seemed to JaureVs reform tactics, it is not on that account any
less explicit in its indorsement of revolutionary methods
whenever the moment happens to be propitious. It states
that the Socialist Party "continually reminds the proletariat
[working class] by its propaganda that they will find salvation
and entire freedom only in a collectivist and communist
regime"; that "it carries on this propaganda in all places
in order to raise everywhere the spirit of demand and of
combat," and that "the Socialists not only indorse the gen-
eral strike for use in economic struggles, but also for the pur-
pose of finally absorbing capitalism."

"Like all exploited classes throughout history," it concludes,
"the proletariat affirms its right to take recourse at certain
moments to insurrectionary violence."

The Toulouse Congress showed, not the present position
of the French Party or of the International, but the points

" REFORMISM ." 137

on which Socialist revolutionists and reformers, everywhere
else at sword's point, can agree. The reformers do not object
to promising the revolutionaries that they shall have their
own way in the relatively rare crises when revolutionary
means are used or contemplated. The revolutionaries are
willing to allow the reformers to claim all the credit for all
reforms beneficial to the workers that happen to be enacted.
Neither gives up their first principle, whether it be revolution
or reform, but in the matter of secondary importance, reform
or revolution, each side tolerates in the party an attitude
in diametrical opposition to its principles and the tactics
it requires. Both do this doubtless in the belief that by this
opportunism they will some day capture the whole party,
and that a split may thus be avoided in the meanwhile.

Since the Toulouse Congress the divisions within the French
Party have become much more acute. Briand's conduct
in the great railway strike in 1911 is discussed below. Yet
in spite of this experience of how much the government
is ready to pay for railways and how little it is ready to do
to their employees, Jaures's followers at the Party Congresses
of 1911 and 1912 stood again for the policy of nationalization,
and Guesde was impelled to warn the party that Briand's
"State Socialism" was the gravest danger to the movement.

Briand's positive achievements are also defended by
JaurSs. The recent workingmen's pension law, unlike that
of England, demands a direct contribution from the employ-
ees. Nevertheless, it contained some slight advantages, and
of the seventy-five Socialist members of the Chamber of
Deputies, only Guesde voted against it. Even when the
Federation of Labor was conducting a campaign against reg-
istration to secure these "benefits," Jaures's organ, L'Hu-
manite took the other side. The working people, as usual,
followed their unions. Less than 5 per cent registered ; in
Paris only 2.5 per cent, and in Brest 22 out of 10,000.

The experience with Millerand and Briand has made it
impossible for Jaure"s to tie the French Party to "reform-
ism." But reformism has brought it about that the
Party is often split in its votes in the Chamber of
Deputies. In the Party Congresses, however, Jaures is
outvoted where a clear difference arises, an outcome he
does his best to avoid. The Congress of 1911 (at St. Quentin)
reaffirmed the international decision at Amsterdam which
prevents the party going in for reform as a part of a non-

138 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Socialist administration. It declared that "Socialists elected
to office are the representatives of a party of fundamental
and absolute opposition to the whole of the capitalist class,
and to the State, its tool." And Vaillant said that since the
Amsterdam Congress in 1904 the question of participation
in capitalist ministries had ceased to exist in France.

It is true that Jaures secured at this Congress, by a narrow
majority, an indorsement of his policy of accepting the gov-
ernment pension offer. But the orthodox followers of Guesde
and the revolutionary disciples of Herve* joined to secure
its condemnation first by the Paris organization, and later
by the National Council of the Party by the decisive vote
of 87 to 51. This resolution which marks a great turning
point in the French Party, is in part as follows : —

"The National Council declares that each time a labor
question is to be decided, the Socialist Party should act in
accord with the General Confederation of Labor."

As the Confederation has indorsed Socialism both as an
end and as a means, few, if any, Socialist parties would
object to this resolution. But the Confederation is also
revolutionary, and this policy, if adhered to, marks an end
to the influence of the "reformism" of Jaures.

The precise objections to the government's insurance pro-
posal are also significant. The National Council protested
against the following features : —

(1) The compulsory contributions.

(2) The capitalization (of the fund).

(3) The ridiculous smallness of the pension.

(4) The age required to obtain the pension.

(5) The reestablishment .of workingmen's certificates.
Among the working people there is no doubt that the first

feature was the chief cause of unpopularity. But Socialists
know that, through indirect taxes or the automatic fall in
wages or rise in prices, the same object of charging the bill
to the workers may be reached. The capitalization refers
to the investment and management of the large fund required
by a capitalist government, thereby increasing its power.
The last point has to do with the tendency to restrict the
workers' liberty in return for the benefits granted — a ten-
dency more visible with the pensions of the railway employees
which were almost avowedly granted to sweeten the bitter
pill of a law directed against their organizations.

The same orthodox and revolutionary elements in the Party

"REFORMISM:: 139

overthrew the Moms Ministry by refusing to vote for it with
JaurSs and his followers. But this ministry, perhaps the most
radical France has had, was in part a creation of Jaures,
who had hailed it with delight in his organ, L'Humanite. The
fact that it only lived for three months and was overthrown
by Socialists was another crushing blow to Jaure^s. As it
came simultaneously with his defeat in the National Council,
it is highly improbable that the reformists will succeed soon,
if ever, in regaining that majority in the movement which
they held for a brief moment at the time of the St. Quentin
Congress and during the first days of the Monis Ministry.

It is now in Belgium and Italy only that "reformism"
is dominant and still threatens to fuse the Socialists with
other parties. In the last election in Italy the Socialists
generally fused with the Republicans and Radicals, while the
Belgian Party has decided to allow the local political organiza-
tions to do this wherever they please in the elections of 1912.

In Belgium, Vandervelde, who has usually represented
himself as an advocate of compromise between the two wings
in international congresses, has now come out for a position
more reformistic than that of Jaure^s and only exceeded by
the British "Labourites." He was one of the movers of the
Amsterdam resolution (see Chapter VII), which he now
declares merely repeated the previous one of Paris (1900)
which, he says, merely "forbids an individual Socialist to take
a part in a capitalist government without the consent of the
Party." On the contrary, this Amsterdam resolution, as
Vaillant says, forbids Socialist Parties to allow their members
to become members of capitalist ministries except under the
most extraordinary and critical circumstances. (2)

We are not surprised after this to hear Vandervelde say
that the Belgian Party has not decided whether it will take
part in a future Liberal government or not, because, though the
occasion for this might occur this year (1912), he considers
it too far off in the future for present consideration — surely
a strange position for a Party that pretends to be interested
in a future society. We are also prepared to hear from him
that Socialists might be ready to accept representation in such
a ministry, not in proportion to their numerical strength,
or even their votes, but in proportion to the number of seats
an unequal election law gives them in Parliament. Whether,
when the question actually presents itself, the Party will
follow Vandervelde is more than questionable.

140 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

In Italy "reformism" has reached its furthermost limit.
When last year (1911) Bissolati was offered a place in the
Giolitti Ministry he hesitated for weeks and was openly urged
by a number of other Socialist deputies to accept. After
consultations with Giolitti and the king he finally refused,
giving as a pretext that, as minister, he would be forced to give
some outward obeisance to monarchy, but really because such
an action would split the Socialist Party and perhaps, also,
because he might not be able altogether to support Giolitti
on the one ground of the military elements of his budget.
Far from condemning Bissolati, the group of Socialist deputies
passed a resolution that expressed satisfaction with his con-
duct and even appointed him to speak in their name at the
opening of the new Parliament. All the deputies save two
then voted confidence in the new ministry and approbation
of its program.

The opinion of the revolutionary majority of the inter-
national movement on this situation was reflected in the
position of the revolutionaries of the two chief cities of the
country, Milan and Rome. At the former city where they
had a third of the delegates to the local Socialist committee
they moved that the Socialist Party could neither authorize
its deputies to represent it in a capitalist ministry or give that
ministry its support, "except under conditions determined,
not by Parliamentary artifices, but by the needs and mature
political consciousness of the great mass of workers." At
Rome two thirds of the Socialist delegates voted a resolution
condemning the action of Bissolati as "the direct and logical
consequence of the thought, program, and practical action
of the reformist group," and reproved both the proposal of
immediate participation in a capitalist government and " the
theoretical encouragement of such a possibility" as being
opposed to all sound and consistent Socialist activity.

The "reformists," led by Turati, were of the opinion merely
that the time was not yet ripe for the action Bissolati had
contemplated. But the grounds given in the resolution pro-
posed by Turati on this occasion show that it was not on
principle that he went even this far. He declared that "in
the present condition of the organization and the present
state of mind of the Party" a participation in the govern-
ment which was "not imposed by a real popular movement,
would profoundly weaken Socialist action, aggravating the
already existing lack of harmony between purely parlia-

"REFORMISM" 141

mentary action and the development of the political con-
sciousness and the capacity for victory on the part of the
great mass of the workers." (3) In other words, as in France,
the working people, especially those in the unions, will not
tolerate a further advance in the reformist direction, but
Turati and Bissolati, like Jaures and Vandervelde are striving
to compromise, just as far as they will be allowed to do so.
There is thus always a possibility of splits and desertions in
these countries, but none that the party will abandon the
revolutionary path.

The tactics of the Italian "reformists" were immensely
clarified at the Congress of Modena (October, 1911). For
the question of supporting a non-Socialist ministry and of
participating in it was made still more acute by the govern-
ment's war against Tripoli, while the Bissolati case above
mentioned was also for the first time before a national Party
Congress. Nearly all Socialists had opposed the war, as had
also many non-Socialists — but after war was declared, the
majority of the Socialist members of Parliament voted against
the general twenty-four hours' strike that was finally declared
as a demonstration against it. This majority had finally de-
cided to support the strike only after it was declared by a
unanimous vote of the executive of the Federation of Labor,
and then its chief anxiety had been lest the strike go too
far. The revolutionary minority in the parliamentary group,
however, which had consisted of only two at the time of the
Bissolati affair, was now increased to half a dozen of the
thirty-odd members, while the revolutionary opposition to
"reformism" in the Modena Congress, as a result of these
two issues, rose to more than 40 per cent of the delegates.

At this Congress the reformists were divided into three
groups, represented by Bissolati, Turati, and Modigliani.
All agreed that it was necessary not only to vote for certain
reforms — to this the revolutionists are agreed — but also
at certain times to vote for the whole budget and to support
the administration. Modigliani, however, declared (against
Bissolati) that no Socialist could ever become a member of a
capitalist ministry; Turati, that while this principle held
true at the present stage of the movement, he would not
bind himself as to the future; while Bissolati was unwilling
to make any pledge on this question. As Bissolati did not
propose, however, that the Socialists should take part in the
present ministry at the present moment, this question was not

142 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

an immediate issue. What had to be decided was whether,
in order to hasten and facilitate the introduction of universal
suffrage and other social reforms, the government is to be
supported at the present moment — when it is waging a war
of colonial conquest to which all Socialists are opposed.

The resolution finally adopted by the Congress was drawn
up by Turati and others who represented the views of the
majority of reformists. While purely negative, it was quite
clear, and the fact that it was finally accepted both by Bis-
solati and by Modigliani is highly significant. It concluded
that "the Socialist group in Parliament ought not any
longer to support the government systematically with their
votes." It did not declare for any systematic opposition
to the administration, even at the time when it is waging this
war. It did not even forbid occasional support, and it left
full discretion in the hands of the same parliamentary group
whose policy I have been recording.

As a consequence the Italian Party at this juncture inten-
tionally tolerated two contradictory policies. Turati de-
clared: "We are in opposition unless in some exceptional
case, in which some situation of extreme gravity might present
itself." Rigola, who was one of the three spokesmen ap-
pointed for the less conservative reformists (with Turati
and Modigliani) said: "We have been ministerialists for
ten years, but little or nothing has been done for the prole-
tariat. Some laws have been approved, but it is doubtful
if they are due to us rather than to the exigencies of progress
itself." In other words, Turati and Rigola thought there
could be occasions for supporting capitalist ministries, though
the present was not such an occasion ; while the latter prac-
tically confessed that the policy had always been a failure
in Italy. But in the face of all criticism Bissolati announced
that he refused absolutely to pass over to the opposition to
the ministry of Giolitti. Turati and his followers, now in
control of the Party, might tolerate this position ; the large and
growing revolutionary minority would not. This could only
mean that Socialist group in the Italian Parliament, like that
of France, and even of Germany, would divide its votes on
many vital matters, or at least that the minority would ab-
stain from voting. Which could only mean that on many
questions of the highest importance there was no longer one
Socialist Party, but two. (4)

Turati himself wrote of the Modena Congress : —

" REFORMISM " 143

"Only two tendencies were to be seen in the discussion
and the voting ; two parties in their bases and principles :
the Socialist Party as a party of the working people, a class
party, a party of political, economic, and social reorganiza-
tion, and on the other side a bourgeois radical party as a
completion of, and perhaps also as a center of new life force
for, the sleeping and half moribund bourgeois democratic
radicalism." (5) That is, the "reformist" Turati denied
that there is anything Socialistic about Bissolati's "ultra-
reformist" faction. To this Bissolati answered that com-
promise and the political collaboration of the working people
with other classes, was not to be reserved, as Turati had said,
for accidental and extraordinary cases, but was "the very
essence of the reformist method." (6) The revolutionaries,
of course, agree with Bissolati that, if the Socialists hold that
their prime function is to work for reforms favored by a large
part of the capitalists, compromises and the habit of fighting
with the capitalists instead of against them are inevitable.

Turati now began to approach the revolutionaries, said
that they had given up their dogmatism, immoderation, and
justification of violence, and that he only differed from them
now on questions of "more or less." The revolutionaries,
however, have made no overtures to Turati, and Turati's
overtures to the revolutionaries have so far been rejected.
Turati's "reformism" seems to be less opportunistic than it
was, but as long as he insists, as he does to-day, that it is
only conditions that have changed and not his reformist
tactics, that the revolutionaries are moving towards the
reformists, the relation of the two factions is likely to re-
main as embittered as ever. Only if the revolutionaries
continue to grow more powerful, until Turati is obliged
still further to moderate his "reformist" principles and to
abandon some of his tactics permanently, instead of saying,
as he does now, that he lays them aside only temporarily, will
there be any real unity in the Italian Socialist Party.

Within a few weeks after the Modena Congress, Turati
had already initiated a movement in this direction when he
persuaded the executive committee of the Party, after a
bitter conflict, and by a majority of one (12 to 13), to enter
definitely into opposition to the government, which in the
meanwhile had given a new cause for offense by delaying
on a military pretext the convocation of the Chamber of
Deputies. (7)

144 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Among the opportunist and ultra "reformists" who were
still anxious to take no definite action, were such well-known
men as Bissolati, Podrecca, Calda, and Ciotti. Bissolati
deplored all agitation in criticism of the war except a demand
for the convocation of the Chamber. Turati and others who
had at last decided to go over definitely to the opposition,
did so on entirely non-Socialist and capitalist grounds such
as the expense of the war, the unprofitable nature of Tripoli
as a colony, the aid the war gave to clericals and other reac-
tionaries (elements opposed also by progressive capitalists),
and the interference it caused with other reforms (favored
also by progressive capitalists). Turati, indeed, was frank
enough to say that he had Lloyd George's successful opposi-
tion to the Boer War as a model, and called the attention of
his associates to the fact that Lloyd George became Minister
(it will be remembered that Turati is not on the whole opposed
to Socialists also becoming ministers — even in a capitalist
cabinet). Even now it was only the revolutionary Musatti
who pointed out the true Socialist moral of the situation, that
failure of the non-Socialist democrats to stand by their prin-
ciples and to oppose the war, ought to lead the party to
separate from them, not only temporarily, but permanently,
and to make impossible forever either the participation of the
Socialists in any capitalist administration or even the sup-
port of such an administration in the Chamber of Deputies.

It was only when Bissolati secured a majority of the So-
cialist deputies, and this majority decided to compel the
minority to accept Bissolati's neutral tactics as to the war
and his readiness actively to support the war government at
every point where that government was in need of support,
that Turati rebelled and demanded that his minority, which
announced itself as willing as a unit to obey the decisions of
the Party Congress, should be recognized as its official repre-
sentative in the Chamber. Turati's position was the same as
before, but Bissolati's greater popularity among the voters,
including non-Socialists, gave the latter control of the Parlia-
mentary group, and forced the former to a declaration of
war. The effect was to throw Turati and his followers into the
arms of the revolutionaries, where they form a minority.

And thus the situation becomes similar to that in France.
The reformist "leaders," Jaures and Turati, do all that is
possible to lead the Socialist Parties of the two countries in
the opposite direction from that in which these organizations

"REFORMISM:; 145

are going. But though these "leaders" are turned in the
direction of class conciliation, they are constantly being
dragged backwards in the direction of class war. Uncon-
sciously they are doing all they can to retard Socialism —
short of leaving the movement. But as long as they consent
to go with Socialism when they are unable to make Socialism
go with them, their ability to retard the movement is strictly
limited.

CHAPTER III
"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN

THE British Socialist situation is almost as important
internationally as the German. The organized workingmen
of the world are indeed divided almost- equally into two
camps. Most of those of Australia, South Africa, and
Canada, as well as a large majority in the United States,
favor a Labour Party of the British type, and even the
reformist Socialist leaders, Jaures in France, Vandervelde in
Belgium, and Turati in Italy, often take the British Party as
model. On the other hand the majority of the Socialists
everywhere outside of Great Britain, including the larger
part of all the working people in every country of continental
Europe, look towards the Socialist Party of Germany as
their model, the political principles and tactics of which are
diametrically opposed to those of the British Labour Party.

Far from opposing their Socialism to the "State Socialism"
of the government, the British Socialists in general frankly
admit that they also are "State Socialists," and seem not to
realize that the increased power and industrial functions of
the State may be used to the advantage of the privileged
classes rather than to that of the masses. The Independent
Labour Party even claims in its official literature that the
"degree of civilization which a state has reached may almost
be measured by the proportion of the national income
which is spent collectively instead of individually." (1)

"Public ownership is Socialism," writes Mr. J. R. Mac-
Donald, until lately Chairman of the Labour Party, (2) while
Mr. Philip Snowden says that the first principle of Socialism is
that the interests of the State stand over those of individ-
uals. (3)

"I believe," says Mr. Keir Hardie, "the collectivist state
to be a preliminary step to a communist state. I believe
collectivism or State Socialism is the next stage of evolution
towards the communist state." " Every class in a commu-
nity," he said in this same speech, "approves and accepts
Socialism up to the point at which its class interests are being

146

"LABORISM'! IN GREAT BRITAIN 147

served." It would appear, then, that Mr. Hardie means by
"Socialism" a program of reforms a part of which at least
is to the benefit 'of every economic class. He contends only
that this "Socialism" could never be "fully" established until
the working class intelligently cooperate with other forces at
work in bringing Socialism into being. (4)

"State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I
frankly admit," said Mr. Hardie, "will prepare the way for
free communism." Mr. Hardie considers it to be the chief
business of Socialists in the present day to fight for "State
Socialism," and is fully conscious that this forces him to the
necessity of defending the present-day State, as, for instance,
when he writes elsewhere, "It is not the State which holds you
in bondage, it is the private monopoly of those means of life
without which you cannot live." Private property and war
and not the State Mr. Hardie believes to have been the
"great enslavers" of past history as of the present day,
apparently ignoring periods in which the State has main-
tained a governing class which consisted not so much of
property owners as of State functionaries ; to periods which
may soon be repeated, when private property served merely as
one instrument of an all-powerful State.

Mr. MacDonald still more closely restricts the word
"Socialism" to the "State Socialist" or State capitalist period
into which we are now entering. "Socialism," says Mac-
Donald, "is the next stage in social growth," (5) and through-
out his writings and policy leaves no doubt that he means the
very next stage, the capitalist collectivism of which I have
been speaking. The international brotherhood of the na-
tions, which many Socialist thinkers feel is an indispensable
condition for the establishment of anything like democratic
Socialism, Mr. MacDonald expects only in the distant fu-
ture (5), while the end of government based on force, which is
also considered essential by the majority of Socialist writers,
Mr. MacDonald postpones to "some far remote genera-
tion."^) In other words, the position of the recent Chairman
of the Labour Party is that what the world has hitherto known
as Socialism can only be expected after a vast period of time,
and his opinion accords with that of many bitter critics and op-
ponents of the movement, who avoid a difficult controversy by
admitting all Socialist arguments and merely asking for
time — "Socialism, a century or two hence — but not now,"
— for all practical purposes an endless postponement.

148 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Mr. MacDonald, who is not only a leader of the Labour
Party, but also one of the chief organizers also of the leading
Socialist Party of that country, has given us by far the
fullest and most significant discussion of that party's
policy. He says that an enlightened bourgeoisie will be
just as likely to be Socialist as the working classes, and
that therefore the class struggle is merely "a grandiloquent
and aggressive figure of speech." (7) Struggle of some kind,
he concedes, is necessary. But the more important form
of struggle in present-day society, he says, is the trade
rivalry between nations and not the rivalry between social
classes. (8) Here at the outset is a complete reversal of the
Socialist attitude. Socialists aim to put an end to this
overshadowing of domestic by foreign problems, principally
for the very reason that it aids the capitalists to obscure
the class struggle — the foundation, the guiding principle,
and the sole reason for the existence of the whole movement.

Mr. MacDonald claims further that a class struggle, far
from uniting the working classes, can only divide them the
more ; in other words, that it works in exactly the opposite
direction from that in which the international organization
believes it works. The only "natural conflicts" in the pres-
ent or future, within any given society, according to the
spokesman of the Labour Party, represent, not the conflicting
interests of certain economic classes, but the "conflicting
views and temperaments" of individuals. (9) And the
chief divisions of temperament and opinion, he says, will be
between the world-old tendencies of action and inaction — a
view which does not differ one iota from that of Mr. Roose-
velt.

Mr. MacDonald asserts that "it is the whole of society
which is developing towards Socialism," and adds, "The
consistent exponent of the class struggle must, of course,
repudiate these doctrines, but then the class struggle is far
more akin to Radicalism than to Socialism." (10) I have
already pointed out how the older Radicalism, or political
democracy, no matter how individualistic and anti-Socialist
it may be, is often, as Mr. MacDonald says, more akin to
International Socialism than that kind of "State Socialism"
or State capitalism Mr. MacDonald represents.

Mr. MacDonald typifies the majority of British Socialists
also in his opposition to every modern form of democratic
advance, such as the referendum and proportional represen-

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 149

tation. Far from being disturbed, as so many democratic
writers are, because minorities are suppressed where there
is no plan of proportional representation, he opposes the sec-
ond ballot, which has been adopted in the majority of the
countries of Continental Europe — and, in the form of direct
primaries, also in the United States. The principal thing that
the electors are to do, he says, is to "send a man to support
or oppose a government."

Mr. MacDonald finds that there is quite a sufficiency of
democracy when the elector can decide between two parties;
and far from considering the members of Parliament as dele-
gates, he feels that they fill the chief political role, while the
people perform the entirely subordinate task either of approv-
ing or of disapproving what they have already done. Parlia-
ment "first of all initiates ideas, suggests aims and purposes,
makes proposals, and educates the community in these things
with a view to their becoming the ideals and aims of the
community itself." (11)

While Mr. MacDonald continues to receive the confidence
of the trade union party, including its Socialistic wing, the
Trade Union Congress votes down proportional representation
by a large majority, apparently because it does not desire its
members to be constituted into a truly independent group
in Parliament, does not care to work for any political principle
however concrete, but prefers to take such share of the actual
powers of government as the Liberal Party is disposed to
grant. Proportional representation would send for the first
time a few outright Socialists to Parliament, but the election
returns 'demonstrate that the trade unionists, if more inde-
pendent of the Liberals, would be fewer in number than at
present. A part of the Socialist voters desire this result and,
of course, believe it is their right. The majority of the trade
unionists, however, who have won a certain modicum of
authority in spite of the undemocratic constitution of their
party, do not care to grant it — as possibly conflicting with
the relatively conservative plans of "the aristocracy of
labor."

The Fabian Society's "Report on Fabian Policy" says
that the referendum, "in theory the most democratic of
popular institutions, is in practice the most reactionary." (12)
Mr. MacDonald refers to it as a " crude Eighteenth Century
idea of democracy," "a form of Village Community govern-
ment." (13) At the Conference of the Labour Party at

150 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Leicester in 1911 he declared that it was "anti-democratic"
and that if the government were to accept it, the Labour
Party "would have to fight them tooth and nail at every step
of that policy." As opposed to any plans for a more direct
and more popular government, he defends the "dignity and
authority" of Parliament and bespeaks the " reverence and
deference" that the people ought to observe toward it.

Contrast with these views Mr. Hobson's presentation of
the non-Socialist Radical doctrine. "Under a professed
and real enthusiasm for a representative system," as opposed
to direct government, Mr. Hobson finds that there is con-
cealed "a deep-seated distrust of democracy." He acknowl-
edges "that the natural conservatism of the masses of the
people might be sufficient to retard some reforms." "But
this is safer and better for democracy," he says, "than the
alternative ' faking ' of progress by pushing legislation ahead
of the popular will. It is upon the whole far more profitable
for reformers to be compelled to educate the people to a gen-
uine acceptance of their reform than to 'work it' by some
'pull' or 'deal' inside a party machine." (14)

Mr. MacDonald not only puts a high value on British
conservatism and a low one on the French Revolution and the
Declaration of Independence, but declares that no change
whatever in the mere structure of government can aid ideal-
ists and reformers in any way, and expects politics and parties
to be much the same in the future as they are at the present
moment. It is this attitude that Mr. Hobson has in mind
when he protests that "the false pretense that democracy
exists" in Great Britain has proved "the subtlest defense of
privilege" — and that this has been the greatest cause of the
waste of reform energy not only in England but also in France
and in the United States. (15) Mr. MacDonald says ex-
plicitly, "The modern state in most civilized countries is
democratic," and adds impatiently that "the remaining
anomalies and imperfections" cannot prevent the people from
obtaining their will. (16) To dismiss in so few words the
monarchy, the restrictions of the suffrage, the unequal elec-
tion districts and other shortcomings of political democracy
in Great Britain, and to insist that the government is already
democratic, is surely, as Mr. Hobson says, "the subtlest
defense of privilege."

Mr. MacDonald comes out flatly with the statement that
under what he calls the democratic parliamentary govern-

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 151

ment of Great Britain it is practically impossible to maintain
a pure and simple Socialist Party. He says proudly that
"nothing which the Labour Parties of Australia or Great
Britain have ever done or tried to do under their constitu-
tions departs in a hair's breadth from things which the Liberal
and the Tory Parties in these countries do every day." (17)
"Indeed, paradoxical though it may appear," he adds,
"Socialism will be retarded by a Socialist Party which thinks
it can do better than a Socialistic Party." (18)

The Independent Labour Party, indeed, has had a program of
reform that is remarkably similar to that of Ministers Churchill
and Lloyd George, and is indorsed in large part by capitalists
— as for example, by Andrew Carnegie. The first measure
of this program provided for a general eight-hour day. Mr.
Carnegie protests that to put the Socialist label on this is as
"frank burglary as was ever committed," and the trade
union movement in general would agree with him. (19)

The second demand was for a "workable unemployment
act." The Labour Party had previously introduced a more
radical measure which very nearly received the support of
a majority of Parliament. The third measure called for
old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this with per-
fect justice : "Mr. MacDonald is here a day behind the fair.
These have been established in Britain before this [Mr.
Carnegie's "Problems of To-day"] appears in print, both
political parties being favorable." It is true that the Labour
party demands a somewhat more advanced measure than that
to which Mr. Carnegie alludes, but there is no radical dif-
ference in principle, and the Labour Party accepted the
present law as being a considerable installment of what they
want.

Of the fourth point the "abolition of indirect taxation
(and the gradual transference of all public burdens to un-
earned incomes)," Mr. Carnegie remarks that "we must
read the bracketed works in the light of Mr. MacDonald's
philosophy," and "that this is a consummation which cannot
be reached (in Mr. MacDonald's words) 'until the organic
structure of society has been completely altered.'" We
have seen that Mr. Churchill also aims at the ultimate expro-
priation of the whole future unearned increment of the land,

The fifth point of the program was similar, — a series of
land acts (aimed at the utlimate nationalization of the land).

The sixth point was the nationalization of the railroads

152 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and mines. Mr. Carnegie reminds us that may conservative
and reactionary governments own their own railroads. We
have seen that Mr. Churchill is in favor of the same proposal.
Mines also are now national property in several countries,
and there is nothing particularly radical or unacceptable
to well-informed conservatives in the proposal to nationalize
them elsewhere.

The seventh demand of the program was for "democratic
political reforms." While the Independent Labour Party
and some of its leaders are in favor of a complete program
of democratic reforms, I have shown that others like Mr.
MacDonald are directly opposed even to many modern
democratic measures already won in other countries.

It would certainly seem that the social reformers, Mr.
Carnegie and others, have as much right as the Socialists
to claim such measures as all those outlined.

Many of the other reforms proposed by the Independent
Labour Party are such as might readily find acceptance
among the most conservative. Indeed in urging the policy
of afforestation, as one means of helping in the solution of
the unemployed problem, the party actually uses the argu-
ment that even Prussia, Saxony, and many other highly capi-
talistic governments are undertaking it; though it does not
mention the reactionary purposes of these governments, as
for example, in Hungary where it is proposed to use the gov-
ernment's new army of labor to build up a scientific system
of breaking strikes. Afforestation would add to the general
wealth of the country in the future, and would be of consid-
erable advantage to the capitalist classes, which makes the
largest uses of lumber. Such a policy could undoubtedly
be devised in carrying out this work as would absorb a con-
siderable portion of the unemployed, and, since unemploy-
ment is a burden to the community and troublesome in many
ways, besides tending to bring about a general deterioration
of the efficiency of the working class, it is also to the ulti-
mate interest of the employers to adopt it.

A leading organ of British Socialism, the New Age,
went so far as to say of the Budget of 1910 that it was almost
as good "as we should expect from a Socialist Chancellor
in his first year of office," and said that if Mr. Philip Snowden,
were Chancellor, the Budget would have been little different
from what it was. (20) And it is true that the principles of
the Budget as interpreted by Mr. Snowden only a few years

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 153

ago in his booklet, "The Socialist Budget," are in nearly
every instance the same, though they are to be somewhat
more widely applied in this Socialist scheme. Of course
all Socialists would have desired a smaller portion of the
Budget to go to Dreadnoughts and a larger part to education,
though, in view of the popularity of the Navy, it is doubtful
whether Labour Party Socialist's would materially cut naval
expenditure (see Chapter V). It must also be noted that
the Socialists are wholly opposed to the increase of indirect
taxation on tobacco and liquor, some four fifths of which
falls on the shoulders of the workingman. But aside from
these points, there is more similarity than contrast between
the two plans.

Mr. Snowden declared that it was the intention of the
Socialists to make the rich poorer and the poor richer, that
they were going to use the power of taxation for that purpose,
and that the Budget marked the beginning of the new era,
an opinion in strange contrast with Premier Asquith's state-
ment concerning the same Budget, for which he was responsible,
that one of its chief purposes was "to increase the stability
and security of property."

Indeed the word "Socialism ' ' has been extended in England
to include measures far less radical than those contemplated
by the present government. The Fabian Society, the chief
advocate of "municipal Socialism" and a professed and
recognized Socialist organization, considers even the post
office and factory legislation as being installments of
Socialism, while the Labour Party would restrict the term
to the nationalization or municipalization of industries —
but the difference is not of very great importance. The
latter class of reform will undoubtedly mark a revolution
in the policy of the British government, but, as Kautsky
says, this revolution may only serve "to Prussianize it,"
i.e. to introduce "State Socialism."

"The best government," says Mr. Webb, "is no longer
'that which governs least,' but 'that which can safely and
advantageously administer most.'"

"Wherever rent and interest are being absorbed under public
control for public purposes, wherever the collective organization of
the community is being employed in place of individual efforts,
wherever in the public interest, the free use of private land or
capital is being further restrained — there one more step toward
the complete realization of the Socialist Ideal is being taken."

154 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The fight of the British Socialists has thus been directed from
the first almost exclusively against the abstraction, "indi-
vidualism," and not against the concrete thing, the capitalist
class. John Morley had said that the early Liberals, Cobden,
Bright, and others, were systematic and constructive, because
they "surveyed society and institutions as a whole," because
they " connected their advocacy of political and legal changes
with theories of human nature," because they "considered
the great art of government in connection with the character
of man, his proper education, his potential capacities," and
could explain "in the large dialect of a definite scheme what
were their aims and whither they were going."

"Is there," Mr. Morley had asked, "any approach to such
a body of systematic political thought in our own day ? " Mr.
Webb announced that the Fabians proposed to fill in this
void. It was primarily system and order rather than any
particular principle at which he aimed. The keynote of
his system was to be opposition to the individualistic theory
of the philosophic Liberals whom the Fabians hoped to
succeed rather than opposition to the principles of capital-
ism, which lend themselves equally well either to an in-
dividualistic or to a collectivistic application.

Just as Mr. Webb is the leading publicist, so Mr. Bernard
Shaw is the leading writer, among the exponents of Fabian
Socialism. It is now more than twenty years since he also
began idealizing the State, and he is doing the same thing
to-day. "Who is the people? What is the people?" he
asked in the Fabian Essays in 1889. "Tom we know, and
Dick ; also Harry ; but solely and separately as individuals :
as a trinity they have no existence. Who is their trustee,
their guardian, their man of business, their manager, their
secretary, even their stockholder? The Socialist is stopped
dead at the threshold of practical action by this difficulty,
until he bethinks himself of the State as the representative
and trustee of the people." (21) It will be noticed that Mr.
Shaw does not say the State may become the representative
and trustee of the people, but that it is their representative.
"Hegel," he continues, "expressly taught the conception of
the perfect State, and his disciples saw that nothing in the
nature of things made it possible or even difficult to make the
existing State if not absolutely perfect, at least trustworthy;"
and then, after alluding with the greatest brevity to the
anti-democratic elements of the British government, Mr.

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 155

Shaw proceeds to develop at great length the wonderful pos-
sibilities of the existing State as the practically trustworthy
trustee, guardian, man of business, manager, secretary, and
stockholder of the people. (22)

Yet Mr. Shaw says that a Social-Democrat is one "who de-
sires through democracy to gather the whole people into the
State, so that the State may be trusted with the rent of the coun-
try, and finally with the land and capital and the organization of
national industry." He reasons that the transition to Social-
ism through gradual extensions of democracy and State
action had seriously begun forty-five years before the writing
of the Essays, that is, in the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury (when scarcely one sixth of the adult male population
of Great Britain had a vote, and w-hen, through the unequal
election districts, the country squires practically controlled
the situation -- W. E. W.). In Mr. Shaw's reasoning, as
in that of many other British Socialists, a very little democ-
racy goes a long way. (23)

Later Mr. Shaw repudiated democracy altogether, saying
that despotism fails only for want of a capable benevolent
despot, and that what we want nowadays is not a new or
modern form of democracy, but only capable benevolent
representatives. He shelved his hopes for the old ideal, gov-
ernment by the people, by opposing to it a new ideal of a very
active and beneficent government for the people. In
"Fabianism and the Empire" Shaw and his collaborators
say frankly: "The nation makes no serious attempt to
democratize its government, because its masses are still in so
deplorable a condition that democracy, in the popular sense
of government by the masses, is clearly contrary to common
sense." (24)

Mr. H. G. Wells, long a member of the Fabian Society,
has well summed up the character of what he calls this
"opportunist Socialist group" which has done so much to
shape the so-called British Socialism. He says that Mr.
Sidney Webb was, during the first twenty years of his career
"the prevailing Fabian."

"His insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-
echoed and intensified by others, and developed into something like
a mania for achieving Socialism without the overt change of any exist-
ing ruling body. His impetus carried this reaction against the crude
democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose Webbites
to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized people

156 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

cannot achieve Socialism, they passed to the implication that
organization alone, without popular support, might achieve Social-
ism. Socialism was to arrive as it were insidiously.

"To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a school-
boy's first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution,
and become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly, unos-
tentatiously, from the representative to the official he appointed;
a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the mechanical diffi-
culties of an administration by debating representatives ; and since
these officials would, by the nature of their positions, constitute a
scientific government as distinguished from haphazard government,
they would necessarily run the country on the lines of a pretty dis-
tinctly undemocratic Socialism.

"The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction
from the large rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism. There
arose even a repudiation of 'principles' of action, and a type of
worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This con-
ception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting
whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create officials
and 'get something done,' was at once immediately fruitful in many
directions, and presently productive of many very grave difficulties
in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics mine.) (25)

Besides the obvious absurdities of such tactics, Mr. Wells
points out that they ignored entirely that reconstruction of
legislative and local government machinery which is very
often an indispensable preliminary to Socialization. He is
speaking of such Socialism when he says : —

"Socialism has concerned itself only with the material reorganiza-
tion of Society and its social consequences, with economic changes
and the reaction of these changes on administrative work ; it has
either accepted existing intellectual conditions and political institu-
tions as beyond its control or assumed that they will obediently
modify as economic and administrative necessity dictates. . . .
Achieve your expropriation, said the early Fabians, get your net-
work of skilled experts over the country, and your political forms,
your public opinion, your collective soul will not trouble you." (26)

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties
of making collectivism serve all the people were ignored on
the one hand, the first need of the people, political education,
was neglected on the other. It is true that during the first
few years of its existence the Fabian Society made a great
and successful effort to educate public opinion in a Socialist
direction, but soon its leading members deserted all such
larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 157

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his
"Misery of Boots" : —

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolu-
tion, and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. It
may be a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one.
You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change
the world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men call-
ing themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who
will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas and
water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between Conserv-
ative and Liberal the way to the millennium. . . . Socialism aims
to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the clothes they
wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the education they
get, their places, their honors, and all their possessions. Socialism
aims to make a new world out of the old. It can only be attained
by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous resolve of a great multi-
tude of men and women. You must get absolutely clear in your
mind that Socialism means a complete change, a break with history,
with much that is picturesque ; whole classes will vanish. The world
will be vastly different, with different sorts of houses, different sorts
of people. All the different trades and industries will be changed,
the medical profession will be carried on under different conditions,
engineering, science, the theatrical trade, the clerical trade, schools,
hotels, almost every trade, will have to undergo as complete an in-
ternal change as a caterpillar does when it becomes a moth . . .
a change as profound as the abolition of private property in slaves
would have been in ancient Rome or Athens." (The italics are
mine.)

Here is the exact opposite view to that which has been
taught for many years by the Fabian Society to no small
audience of educated Englishmen (and Americans). For
there are comparatively few who have neither read any of the
Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's
plays in which the same standpoint is represented.

Mr. John A. Hobson classes the Socialist and non-Socialist
reformers of Great Britain together as regards their oppor-
tunism. Though a Liberal himself, he objects that some
Socialists are not radical enough, and that "the milder and
more opportunist brand suffer from excessive vagueness." Of
the prevailing tendency towards opportunism, Mr. Hobson
writes : —

"This revolt against ideas is carried so far that able men have
come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the manipula-
tion of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee by

158 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

sophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national issues
really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of political
management, the play of the adroit tactician and the complete
canvasser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the sane ex-
pression of the national will, are won by these and by no other means.

" Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more
disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism. Suppose that
the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little clique of
specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper point in the
machinery of public life, will this machinery grind out progress?
Every student of industrial history knows that the application of
a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance than the inven-
tion of a special machine. Now, what provision is made for generat-
ing the motor power of progress in Collectivism ? Will it come of
its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently thinks it
will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the suppression
of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a private com-
pany, some needed enlargement of existing Municipal or State
enterprise by lateral expansion — such are the sole springs of action.
In this way the Municipalization of public services, increased asser-
tion of State control over mines, railways, and factories, the assump-
tion under State control of large departments of transport trade,
proceed without any recognition of the guidance of general principles.
Everywhere the pressure of special concrete interests, nowhere the
conscious play of organized human intelligence ! . . .

"My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory'
and 'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that
reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the applica-
tion of economic first principles, are not thrown back entirely upon
that crude empiricism which insists that each case is to be judged
separately and exclusively on its own individual merits."

Mr. Hobson then proposes his collectivist program, which
he rightly considers to be not Socialist but Liberal merely —
and we find it more collectivistic, radical, and democratic than
that of many so-called Socialists. Moreover it expresses
the views of a large and growing proportion of the present
Liberal Party. Then he concludes as follows : —

"If practical workers for social and industrial reforms continue
to ignore principles, the inevitable logic of events will nevertheless
drive them along the path of Collectivism here indicated. But they
will have to pay the price which shortsighted empiricism always
pays ; with slow, hesitant, and staggering steps, with innumerable
false starts and blackslidings, they will move in the dark along an
unseen track towards an unseen goal. Social development may be
conscious or unconscious. It has been mostly unconscious in the
past, and therefore slow, wasteful, and dangerous. If we desire it

"LABORISM'I IN GREAT BRITAIN 159

to be swifter, safer, and more effective in the future, it must be-
come the conscious expression of the trained and organized will of
a people not despising theory as unpractical, but using it to furnish
economy in action." (27)

Practically all "State Socialists" hold a similar view to
that of Shaw and Webb. Mr. Wells even, in his "First and
Last Things," has a lengthy attack on what he calls democ-
racy, when he tells us that its true name is "insubordina-
tion," and that it is base because "it dreams that its leaders
are its delegates." His view of democracy is strictly con-
sistent with his attitude toward the common man, whom he
regards as "a gregarious animal, collectively rather like a
sheep, emotional, hasty, and shallow." (28) Democracy
can only mean, Mr. Wells concludes, that power will be put
into the hands of "rich newspaper proprietors, advertising
producers, and the energetic wealthy generally, as the source
flooding the collective mind freely with the suggestions on
which it acts."

The New Age, representing the younger Fabians, also
despairs of democracy and advocates compromise, because
"the democratic party have failed so far to be indorsed and in-
forced by popular consent." It acknowledges that the power
of the Crown is "great and even temporarily overwhelming,"
but discourages opposition to monarchy for the reason that
monarchy rests on the ignorance and weakness of the people
and not on sheer physical coercion. (29) The New Age
opposes those democratic proposals, the referendum and pro-
portional representation, considers that the representative
may so thoroughly embody the ideals and interests of the
community as to become "a spiritual sum of them all," and
admits that this ideal of a "really representative body of
men" might be brought about under an extremely undemo-
cratic franchise. (30) "Outside of a parish or hamlet the
Referendum," it says, "is impossible. To an Empire it is
fatal." (31) And finally, this Socialist organ is perfectly
ready to grant another fifty million pounds for the navy,
provided the money is drawn from the rich, as it finds that
"a good, thumping provision for an increased navy would
do a great deal to sweeten a drastic budget for the rich, as
well as strengthen the appeal of the party which professes
to be advancing the cause of the poor." Imperialism and
militarism, which in most countries constitute the chief form
in which capitalism is being fought by Socialists, are actually

160 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

considered as of secondary importance, on the ground that
through acquiescing in them it becomes possible to hasten a
few reforms, such as have already been granted by the
capitalists of several other countries without any Socialist
surrender and even without Socialist pressure of any kind.

The recent appeal of the New Age, for "a hundred
gentlemen of ability" to save England, its regret that no
truly intelligent and benevolent "governing class" or "Pla-
tonic guardians" are to be found, and its weekly disparage-
ment of democracy do not offer much promise that it will
soon turn in the radical direction. On the contrary it pre-
dicts that the firm possession of political power by the wealthy
classes is foredoomed to result, as in the Roman Empire, in
the creation of two main classes, each of which must become
corrupt, "the one by wealth and the other by poverty," and
that finally the latter must become incapable of corporate
resistance. The familiar and scientifically demonstrated
fact of the physical and moral degeneration of a considerable
part of the British working people doubtless suggests to many
persons such pessimistic conclusions. "It is hopeless in our
view," the New Age concludes, "to expect that the poor
and ignorant, however desperate and however numerous,
will ever succeed in displacing their wealthy rulers. No
slave revolt in the history of the world has ever succeeded
by its own power. In these days, moreover, the chances of
success are even smaller. One machine gun is equal to a
mob." (32)

Indeed the distrust of democracy is so universal among Brit-
ish Socialists that Belloc, Chesterton and other Liberals accuse
them plausibly, but unjustly, of actually representing an aris-
tocratic standpoint. In an article entitled " Why I Am Not A
Socialist," Mr. Chesterton expresses a belief, which he says
is almost unknown among the Socialists of England, namely,
a belief "in the masses of the common people." (33) Mr.
Belloc, in a debate against Bernard Shaw, predicted that
Socialism, if it comes in England, will probably be simply
"another of the infinite and perpetually renewed dodges of
the English aristocracy."

It may be well doubted if any of the more important of
the world's conservative, aristocratic, or reactionary forces
(except the doctrinaire Liberals) are opposed to Socialism
as defined by the Fabian Society, i.e. a gradual movement
in the direction of collectivism. Not only Czar and Kaiser

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 161

but even the Catholic Church may be claimed as Socialistic
by this standard. Mr. Hubert Bland, one of the original
Fabian Essayists and a very influential member of the So-
ciety, himself a Catholic, actually asserts that the Church
never has attacked Fabian or true Socialism. In view of the
fact that the Church is at war with the Social ist Parties of Italy,
France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the United States, and
every country where both the Church and the Socialists are a
political power, in view of the wholesale and most explicit
denunciations by Popes and high ecclesiastics, and the war
being waged against the Socialist Parties at every point,
Mr. Eland's argument has some interest.

Having defined Socialism as "the increase of State rights"
and "the tendency to limit the proprietary rights of the indi-
vidual and to widen the proprietary rights and activities
of the community" or as the "control of property by the
State and municipality," Mr. Bland has, of course, no diffi-
culty in showing that the Catholic Church has never op-
posed it — though many individualistic Catholics have done
so.

"No fewer than two Popes," writes Mr. Bland, "are said
to have condemned Socialism in authoritative utterances,
but when I examine and analyze these condemnations, I
find it is not Socialism in the sense I have defined it here,
that is condemned." (34) It is indeed true that few of the
most bitter and persistent enemies of the Socialist movement
condemn "Socialism" as defined by Mr. Bland and his
"State Socialist" associates.

This capitalistic collectivism promoted by the Fabian
Society has embodied itself practically in the movement
towards "municipal Socialism" of which so much was heard
some years ago, first in Great Britain and later in other
countries. It is now from ten to twenty years since many
British cities, notably Glasgow, began municipal experiments
on a large scale that were branded by Socialists and non-
Socialists alike, as municipal Socialism. The first of these
experiments included not only the municipalization of street
railways, electric light and current, and so on, but even the
provision of municipal slaughter houses, bathing establish-
ments, and outdoor amusements. The later stages have
developed in a somewhat different direction. The chief
reforms under discussion everywhere seem now to be the
proposals that the municipalities should provide housing

M

162 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

accommodations for the poorer elements of the population,
and that the health of the children should be looked after,
even to the extent of providing free lunches in public schools.
If less had been heard of "municipal Socialism" in the last
year or two, this is merely because reforms on a national
scale have for the moment received the greater share of public
attention. This does not necessarily mean that the national
reforms are more important than the municipal, but only that
the latter came first because they were easier to inaugurate,
though perhaps more difficult to carry to a successful con-
clusion.

But the first popularity of the municipal reform movement,
both in Great Britain and in other countries, has received
at least a temporary setback as the relations between this
"municipal Socialism" and taxation were recognized. Both
the non-taxpaying working people and the small taxpaying
middle class saw that the profits of the new municipal enter-
prises went to a considerable extent towards decreasing the
taxation of the well-to-do instead of conferring benefits on
the majority. This might appear strange, since under uni-
versal suffrage the non-taxpaying and non-landowning
majority would be expected to dominate. But in Great
Britain, as well as elsewhere, central governments, in the
firm control of taxpayers and landowners, exercise a strict
control over the municipalities, so that this kind of reform
will prove- advantageous chiefly to the landlords, by enabling
them to raise rents in proportion to the benefits gained by
tenants ; and to the taxpaying minority, by making it pos-
sible to use the profits of municipal undertakings for the
purpose of reducing taxes.

The tendency toward the extension of municipal enter-
prises to be noted in all the important cities of the world,
is hastened by the public belief that there is no other possible
means of preventing the exploitation of all classes, and con-
sequent widespread injury to trade, building, and industry
in general, by public service corporations. But it must be
observed that whatever municipalization there is will con-
tinue to be under the control of the taxpayers, landowners,
and business men and largely in their interest as long as
national governments remain in capitalist hands.

The national social reform administrations that are coming
into power in so many countries are encouraging various
forms of taxpayers' "municipal Socialism." The ultra-

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 163

conservative governments of Germany, Austria, and Belgium
all permit the cities to engage even in the public feeding of
school children, while the reactionary national government
of Hungary has undertaken to provide for the housing of
25,000 working people at Budapest. The conservative
London Daily Mail cries out that the Hungarian minister,
Dr. Wekerle has "stolen a march on the Socialists," but that
it is the "right sort of Socialism," and that "it has been left
to the leader of the privileged Parliament [the Hungarian Par-
liament representing not the small capitalists, but the landed
nobility and gentry] to make the first start." And there
is little doubt that both the provision of houses for the work-
ing people and the public feeding of" school children rest on
precisely the same principles as the social reforms now being
undertaken by national governments, such as that of Great
Britain, and are, indeed, the "right sort of Socialism " from
the capitalist standpoint.

Taking the municipal reformer as a type of the so-called
Socialist, Mr. Belloc, a prominent Liberal Member of Parlia-
ment and an anti-Socialist, says that "in the atmosphere in
which he works and as regards the susceptibilities which he
fears to offend," that the municipal Socialist is entirely of
the capitalist class. "You cannot make revolutions without
revolutionaries," he continues, "and anything less revolu-
tionary than your municipal reformer never trod the earth.
The very conception is alien to this class of persons ; usually
he is desperately frightened as well. Yet it is quite certain
that so vast a change as Socialism presupposes cannot be
carried out without hitting. When one sees it verbally
advocated ( and in practice shirked) by men who have never
hit anything in their lives, and who are even afraid of a scene
with a waiter in a restaurant, one is not inclined to believe
in the reality of the creed." Mr. Belloc concludes finally that
all that this kind of Socialism has done during its moments
of greatest activity has tended merely to recognize the capital-
ist more and more and to stereotype the gulf between him
and the other classes. (35)

And just as Mr. Belloc has reproached the Socialists for
their conservatism, so the New Age and other mouth-
pieces of Socialism condemn the non-Socialist radicals who
constitute one of the chief elements among the supporters
of the present government (including Mr. Belloc) as being
too radical. In the literature of the Fabian Society also, the

164 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

accusation against the Liberals of being too revolutionary
is quite frequent. Years ago Mr. Sidney Webb accused them
of having "the revolutionary tradition in their bones,"
of conceiving society as "a struggle of warring interests,"
and said that they would reform nothing "unless it be done
at the expense of their enemies." While this latter accusa-
tion is scarcely true, either of the British Liberals or of the
revolutionary Socialists of the Continent, it is obvious that
the most important reforms of the Socialists, those to which
greatest efforts must necessarily be given, those which alone
must be fought for, are precisely the ones that must be
brought about "at the expense of the enemy."

In no other country has public opinion either within the
Socialist movement or outside of it so completely despaired
of democracy and the people. In none has the spirit of
popular revolt and militant radicalism been so long dormant.
Yet, there can be little doubt that the British masses, en-
couraged by those of France, Germany, and other countries,
will one day recover that self-confidence and self-assertion
they seem to have lost since the times of the "Levellers"
of the Commonwealth, two hundred and fifty years ago.
It may take years before this new revolutionary movement
gains the momentum it already possesses in Germany and
France. But the great strikes of 1910, 1911, and 1912 (see
Part III, Chapter VI) and the changes in politics that have ac-
companied these strikes show that this movement has already
begun. There is already a strong division of opinion within
the Socialistic "Independent Labour Party," and this organ-
ization has also taken issue on several important matters
with the non-Socialist Labour Party, of which, however, it is
still a part.

After the unsatisfactory results of the elections of 1910
the conflict within the Independent Labour Party became
more acute than ever. Mr. Barnes, then chairman of the
Labour Party itself, and Mr. Keir Hardie, the chief figure
in its Socialistic (Independent Labour Party) section, criti-
cized severely the tactics that had been followed by the ma-
jority, led also by two members of the same "Socialistic" section,
Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden. It is true that the differ-
ence was not very fundamental, but it is interesting to note
that MacDonald and Snowden and their avowed non-
Socialist trade-union allies were accused of giving so much
to the Liberals as even to weaken the position of the Labour

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 165

Party itself to say nothing of the still greater inconsistency of
such comprises with anything approaching Socialism. Mr.
Barnes and Mr. Hardie pointed out that the timid tactics pur-
sued had endangered not only the fight against the House of
Lords, but also the effort to keep down the naval budget and
the proposed solution of the unemployment question that was
to have acknowledged "the right to work." That is, Mr.
MacDonald and Mr. Snowden had been so anxious to please
the Liberal government, that they had risked even these
moderate reforms, which were favored by many anti-Socialis-
tic Radicals.

At the "Independents'" 1911 conference at Birmingham,
again, a motion was proposed by the radical element, Hall,
MacLachlan, and others, which demanded that this Party
should cease voting perpetually for the government merely
because the government claimed that every question required
a vote of confidence, and that they should put their own issues
in the foreground, and vote on all others according to their
merits. This very consistent resolution, in complete accord
with the position of Socialist Parties the world over, was
however voted down by the "Independents," as it had been
shortly previously at the conference of the non-Socialist
Labour Party of which they are a section. The executive
committee brought in an amendment in the contrary sense
to that of the radical resolution, and this amendment was
ably supported by MacDonald. Hardie and Barnes, however,
persuaded the Congress to vote down both resolution and
amendment on the ground that the "Independents" in Par-
liament ought to support the Liberal and Radical government,
except in certain crises — as illustrations of which Barnes men-
tioned the Labourites' opposition to armaments and their
demand for the right to work. Keir Hardie also declared
that he was not satisfied with the conduct of the Labour
Party in Parliament; his motion condemning the govern-
ment's action in the Welsh coal strike, for example, had
secured only seventeen of their forty votes. He claimed that
the influence of the Liberals over the party was due, not to
their social reform program, but to their passing of the trade-
union law permitting picketing after the elections of 1906,
and that he feared them more than he did the Conservatives.
However, he thought that this Liberal influence was now on
the decline, and said that if the Liberals attempted to
strengthen the House of Lords, as suggested in the preamble

166 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

to their resolution, abolishing its veto power, the Labour
Party would be re.ady to vote against the government.

The Labourites did, as a matter of fact, vote against this
preamble, and the government was saved only because Bal-
four and the Conservatives lent it their support. It still
remains to be seen if the Labourites will detach themselves
from the Liberals on a really crucial question, one on which
they know the Conservatives will remain in the opposition —
in other words, whether they will do the only thing that can
possibly show any real independence or make them a factor
of first importance in the nation's politics, that is, overturn
a government. Doubtless this day will come, but it does
not seem to be at hand.

This discussion was much intensified by the decision of the
executive of the Labour Party (in order to retain the legal
right to use trade-union funds for political purposes) to relieve
Labour members of Parliament of their pledge to follow a
common policy. This decision again was opposed by the
majority of the "Independent" section including Hardie
and Barnes, but favored by a minority, led by MacDonald.
With the aid of the non-Socialistic element, however, it
was carried by a large majority at the Labour Party's con-
ference in 1911. Thus while one element is growing more
radical another is growing more conservative and the
breach between the Independents and the other Labourites is
widening.

Perhaps the closest and most active associate of Mr.
MacDonald at nearly every point has been Mr. Philip
Snowden. Even Mr. Snowden finally declared that a recent
action of the Labour Party, when all but half a dozen of its
members voted with the Liberals, against what Mr. Snowden
states to have been the instructions of the Party conference,
"finally completes their identity with official Liberalism."
Mr. Snowden asserted that if the " Independents " would
stand this they would stand anything, that the time had come
to choose between principle and party, and that he was not
ready to sacrifice the former for the latter.

Shortly after this incident, which Mr. MacDonald attrib-
uted to a misunderstanding, came the great railway strike
and its settlement, in which he and Mr. Lloyd George were
the leading factors. Received with enthusiasm by the Lib-
eral press, this settlement was bitterly denounced by the
Labour Leader, the official organ of the "Independents."

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 167

Mr. MacDonald on the other hand expressed in the House
of Commons deep satisfaction with the final attitude of the
government and predicted that if it was maintained no such
trouble need arise again in a generation. No statement could
have been more foreign to the existing feeling among the
workers, a part of whom it will be remembered failed to return
to work for several days after the settlement. The "Inde-
pendents" as the political representatives of the more radical
of the unionists, naturally embody this discontent, while
the Labour Party, being partly responsible for the settlement,
becomes more than ever the semi-official labor representative
of the government — a divergence that can scarcely fail to
lead to an open breach.

It was as a result of all of these critical situations, especially
the great railway strike and its sequels, that an effort has
been made to form a "British Socialist Party" to embrace
all Socialist factions, and to free them from dependence on
the Labour Party. It has succeeded in uniting all, except
the Independent Labour Party and the Fabian Society, and
includes even a number of local branches (though only a small
minority of the total number) of the former organization.
This Party has issued an outright revolutionary declaration
of principles. Mr. Quelch, editor of the Social Democratic
organ, Justice, had proposed the following declaration of prin-
ciples, which was far in advance of the present position of the
Independent Labour Party, if somewhat ambiguous in the
clause printed in italics : —

"The Socialist Party is the political expression of the working-
class movement, acting in the closest cooperation with industrial
organizations for the socialization of the means of production and
distribution — that is to say, the transformation of capitalist
society into a collective or communist society. Alike in its object,
its ideals, and in the means employed, the Socialist party, though
striving for the realization of immediate social reforms demanded by
the working class, is not a reformist but a revolutionary party, which
recognizes that social freedom and equality can only be won by
fighting the class war through to the finish, and thus abolishing for-
ever all class distinctions." (36)

The phrase underlined was opposed by several of the revo-
lutionary representatives of Independent Labour Party
branches who were present as delegates and others, and by
a narrow vote was expunged. The declaration as it now
stands is as radical as that of any Socialist Party in the world.

168 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The new organization is already making some inroads among
the membership of the Independent Labour Party and there
seems to be a chance that it will succeed before many years
in its attempt to free that organization and British Socialism
generally from their dependence on the Labour and Liberal
Parties.

Perhaps the contrast between " Labour " Party and Socialist
Party methods and aims comes out even more clearly in
Australasia than in Great Britain. A typical view of the
New Zealand reforms as being steps towards Socialism is
given by Thomas Walsh, of the Auckland Voice of Labour
(see New York Call, September 10, 1911).

After giving a list of things " already accomplished,"
including a mention of universal suffrage, state operation of
the post office, prohibition of child labor, "free and compul-
sory secular education up to the age of fourteen years," and
"State-assisted public hospitals" -besides the other more
distinctively capitalist collectivist reforms, such as govern-
ment railways, mines, telegraphs, telephones, parcel post,
life and fire insurance, banks and old-age pensions and muni-
cipal ownership, Mr. Walsh concludes : —

" These are some of the things already done : there is a long list
more. The revolutionary seize and hold group may label them
palliatives, may howl down as red herrings across the scent, may
declare that they obscure main issues, but I want to know which
of the reforms they want to see abolished, which of them are useless,
which of them are not necessary ? Contrary to the fond delusion of
the revolutionary group, the defenders of the present system don't and
won't hand out anything; everything obtained is wrenched from them;
and in the political arena, armed with the ballot box and the knowl-
edge of its use, there is. no thing that labor cannot obtain.

"Have the reforms secured blurred the main issue, have we lost
sight of the goal ? The objective of the New Zealand Labour Party
to-day is the ' securing to all of the full value of their labour power
by the gradual public ownership of all the means of production,
distribution, and exchange.' Contrary to your critic's opinion, what
has already been done has but whetted the appetite for more, and
to-day New Zealand labour is marshaling its forces for further as-
saults on the fortress of the privileged.

"Every reform we have secured has been a step toward the goal;
every step taken means one step less to take. The progressive
legislation has not sidetracked the movement — it has cleared the
road for further advancement.

" In New Zealand the enumerated reforms are law — made law
in defiance of the wealth-owning class. At the moment labour does not

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 169

possess the power to administer the laws, but far from that being an
argument to abandon the law, it has convinced New Zealand labor
that the administrative control must be got possession of, and
through the ballot box New Zealand labour will march to get that
control. Given control of the national and local government, the food
supplies can be nationalized and more competitive State-owned in-
dustries established. And by labour administration of the arbitration
court the prices and wages can be so adjusted that the worker can buy
out of the market all that his labor put into it.

" To the brothers in America I say, Go on. Don't waste time
arguing about economic dogma. Get a unified labor movement
and throw the whole industrial force into the political arena. Any-
thing less than the whole force means delay. The whole force means
victory. We have progressed. We have experimented. We have
proved. Yours it is but to imitate — and improve."

I have underlined the most important of Mr. Walsh's
conclusions that are contradicted by the evidence I have
given in this chapter and elsewhere in the present volume.
The Socialist view of the last two statements may be best
shown by a quotation from Mr. Charles Edward Russell,
who is the critic referred to by Mr. Walsh, and has undertaken
with great success to uproot among the Socialists of this
country the fanciful pictures and fallacies concerning Aus-
tralasia that date in this country from the time of the radical
and fearless but uncritical and optimistic books of Henry D.
Lloyd ("A Country Without Strikes," etc.). Mr. Russell
shows that a Labor Party as in Australia may gain control
of the forms of government, without actually gaining the
sovereignty over society or industry. (See the International
Socialist Review, September, 1911.) In an article that has
made a greater sensation in the American movement than
any that has yet appeared (with the exception of Debs's
"Danger Ahead," quoted in the next chapter), Mr. Russell
writes : —

"A proletarian movement can have no part, however slight,
in the game of politics. The moment it takes a seat at that grimy
board is the moment it dies within. After that, it may for a time
maintain a semblance of life and motion, but in truth it is only a
corpse.

"This has been proved many times. It is being proved to-day
in Great Britain. It has been proved recently and most convinc-
ingly in the experience of Australia and New Zealand.

"In Australia the proletarian movement that began eighteen
years ago has achieved an absolute triumph — in politics. Under
the name of the Labor Party it has won all that any political com-

170 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

bination can possibly win anywhere. It has played the political
game to the limit and taken all the stakes in sight. The whole
national government is in its hands. It has attained in fullest
measure to the political success at which it aimed. It not merely
influences the government; it is the government.

"To make the situation clear by an American analogy, let us
suppose the Socialists of America* to join hands with the progressive
element in the labor unions and with the different groups of advanced
radicals. Let us suppose a coalition party to be formed called the
Labor Party. Let us suppose this to have entered the State and
national campaigns, winning at each successive election more seats
in Congress, and finally, after sixteen years of conflict, electing its
candidate for President and a clear majority of the Senate and the
House of Representatives. This would be admitted to be the sum-
mit of such a party's aims and to mean great and notable success ;
and it would closely parallel the situation in Australia.

"Exactly such a Labor Party has administered the affairs of
Australia since April, 1910. Its triumph was the political success
of a proletarian movement that was steered into the political game.
What has resulted?

"This has resulted, that the Labor Party of Australia is now
exactly like any other political party and means no more to the
working class except its name. Constituted as the political party
of that class, it has been swept into power by working-class votes,
and after almost a year and a half of control of national affairs, it can
show nothing more accomplished for working-class interests than
any other party has accomplished. The working class under the
Labor Party is in essentially the same condition that it has been
in under all the other administrations, nor is there the slightest
prospect that its condition will be changed.

"In other words, the whole machine runs on exactly as before,
the vast elaborated machine by which toilers are exploited and
parasites are fed. Once in power, the Labor Party proceeded to
do such things as other parties had done for the purpose of keeping
in power, and it is these things that maintain the machine.

" On the night of the election, when: the returns began to indicate
the result, the gentleman that is now Attorney-General of the Com-
monwealth was in the Labor Party headquarters, jumping up and
down with uncontrollable glee.

" 'We're in ! ' he shouted. 'We're in ! We're in ! '

"That was an excellent phrase and neatly expressed the whole
situation. The Labor Party was in ; it had won the offices and the
places of power and honor ; it had defeated the opponents that had
often defeated it. It was 'in.' The next thing was to keep in,
and this is the object that it has assiduously pursued ever since.
' We are in ; now let us stay in. We have the offices ; let us keep
the offices.'

"The first thing it does is to increase its strength with the bour-

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 171

geoisie and the great middle class always allied with its enemies.
To its opponents in the campaigns the handiest weapon and most
effective was always the charge that the Labor Party was not patri-
otic, that it did not love the dear old flag of Great Britain with the
proper degree of fervor and ecstasy ; that it was wobbly on the sub-
ject of war and held strange, erratic notions in favor of universal
peace instead of yelling day and night for British supremacy
whether right or wrong — which is well known to be the duty of the
true and pure patriot. This argument was continually used and
had great effect.

"Naturally, as the Labor Party was now in and determined to
stay in, the wise play indicated in the game upon which it had em-
barked, was to disprove all these damaging allegations and to show
that the Labor Party was just as patriotic as any other party could
possibly be. So its first move was to adopt a system of universal
military service, and the next to undertake vast schemes of na-
tional defense. The attention and admiration of the country were
directed to the fact that the Labor administration was the first to
build small arms factories, to revise the military establishment so
as to secure the greatest efficiency and to prepare the nation for
deeds of valor on the battlefield.

"At the time this was done there was a crying need for new labor
legislation; the system or lack of system of arbitrating labor dis-
putes was badly in need of repairs; workingmen were being im-
prisoned in some of the States for the crime of striking ; the power
of government was often used to oppress and overawe strikers, even
when they had been perfectly orderly and their cause was absolutely
just. These with many other evils of the workingman's condition
were pushed aside in order to perfect the defense system and get
the small arms factories in good working order, for such were the
plain indications of the game that the Labor Party had started out
to play. 'We're in; let us stay in.'

"Meantime there remains this awkward fact about the condi-
tion of the working class. It is no less exploited than before. It is
as far, apparently, from the day of justice under the rule of the
Labor Party as it was under the rule of the Liberal Party. What
are you going to do about that ? Why, there is nothing to be done
about that as yet. The country, you see, is not ready for any
radical measures on that subject. If we undertook to make any
great changes in fundamental conditions, we should be defeated at
the next election and then we should not be in, but should
be out. True, the cost of living is steadily increasing, and
that means that the state of the working class is inevitably de-
clining. True, under the present system, power is steadily ac-
cumulating in the hands of the exploiters, so that if we are afraid
to offend them now, we shall be still more afraid to offend them
next year and the next. But the main thing is to keep in. We're
in ; let us stay in.

172 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"Hence, also, the Labor administration has been very careful
not to offend the great money interests and powerful corporations
that are growing up in the country. These influences are too power-
ful in elections. Nothing has been done that could in the least
disturb the currents of sacred business. It was recognized as not
good politics to antagonize business interests. Let the administra-
tion keep along with the solid business interests of the country,
reassuring them for the sake of the general prosperity and helping
them to go on in the same, safe, sane, and conservative way as be-
fore. It was essential that business men should feel that business was
just as secure under the Labor administration as under any other.
Nothing that can in the least upset business, you know. True,
this sacred business consists of schemes to exploit and rob the work-
ing class, and true, the longer it is allowed to go upon its way the
more powerful it becomes and the greater are its exploitations and
profits. But if we do anything that upsets business or tends to
disturb business confidence, that will be bad for us at the next
election. Very likely we shall not be able to keep in. We are in
now ; let us stay in, and have the offices and the power.

"Therefore, it is with the greatest pride that the Labor people
point out that under the Labor administration the volume of busi-
ness has not decreased, but increased ; the operations of the banks
have shown no falling off ; they are still engaged as profitably as of
yore in skinning the public ; the clearings are in an eminently satis-
factory condition; profits have suffered no decline; all is well in
our marts of trade. The old machine goes on so well you would
never know there had been any change in the administration.
Business men have confidence in our Party. They know that we
will do the right thing by them, and when in the next campaign the
wicked orators of the opposition arise and say that the Labor Party
is a party of disturbers and revolutionists, we can point to these
facts and overwhelm them. And that will be a good thing, because
otherwise we might not be able to keep in. We're in ; let us stay
in.

"If the capitalists had designed the very best way in which to
perpetuate their power, they could not have hit upon anything
better for themselves than this. It keeps the working class occupied,
it diverts their minds from the real questions that pertain to their
condition ; it appeals to their sporting instincts ; we want to win,
we want to cheer our own victory, we want to stay in ; this is the
way to these results. And meantime the capitalists rake off the
profits and are happy. We are infinitely better off in the United
States. The Labor Party of Australia has killed the pure prole-
tarian movement there. At least we have the beginnings of one
here. If there had been no Labor Party, there would now be in
Australia a promising working-class movement headed towards
industrial emancipation. Having a Labor Party, there is no such
movement in sight. . . .

"LABORISM'! IN GREAT BRITAIN 173

"You say: Surely it was something gained in New Zealand to
secure limited hours of employment, to have sanitary factories,
clean luncheon rooms, old-age pensions, workingmen's compensation.
Surely all these things represented progress and an advance toward
the true ideal.

"Yes. But every one of these things has been magnified, dis-
torted and exaggerated for the purpose and with the result of keep-
ing the workingman quiet about more vital things. How say you
to that? Every pretended release from his chains has been in
fact a new form of tether on his limbs. What about that? I
should think meanly of myself if I did not rejoice every time a
workingman's hours are reduced or the place wherein he is
condemned to toil is made more nearly tolerable. But what
shall we conclude when these things are deliberately employed
to distract his thoughts from fundamental conditions and when
all this state of stagnation is wrought by the alluring game of
politics ?

"I cannot help thinking that all this has or ought to have a lesson
for the Socialist movement in America. If it be desired to kill
that movement, the most effective way would be to get it entangled
in some form of practical politics. Then the real and true aim of
the movement can at once be lost sight of and this party can go the
way of every other proletarian party down to the pit. I should
not think that was a very good way to go.

"When we come to reason of it calmly, what can be gained by
electing any human being to any office beneath the skies ? To get
in and keep in does not seem any sort of an object to any one that
will contemplate the possibilities of the Cooperative Common-
wealth. How shall it profit the working class to have Mr. Smith
made sheriff or Mr. Jones become the coroner? Something else
surely is the goal of this magnificent inspiration. In England the
radicals have all gone mad on the subject of a successful parliament-
ary party, the winning of the government, the filling of offices, and
the like. I am told that the leaders of the coalition movement have
already picked out their prime minister against the day when they
shall carry the country and be in. In the meantime they, too, must
play this game carefully, being constantly on their guard against
doing anything that would alarm or antagonize the bourgeoisie and
sacred businesses and telling the workers to wait until we get in.
I do not see that all this relieves the situation in Whitechapel or that
any fewer men and women live in misery because we have a prospect
of getting in.

"Furthermore, to speak quite frankly, I do not see where there
is a particle of inspiration for Americans in any of these English-
speaking countries. So far as I can make out the whole of mankind
that dwells under the British flag is more or less mad about political
success, Parliament and getting in. They say in New Zealand that
the government can make a conservative of any radical, if he

174 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

threatens to become dangerous, by giving him some tin-horn honor
or a place in the upper chamber. In England we have seen too
often that the same kind of influences can silence a radical by invit-
ing him to the king's garden party or allowing him to shake hands
with a lord. I do not believe we have anything to learn from these
countries except what to avoid."

CHAPTER IV
"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES

BECAUSE of our greater European immigration and more
advanced economic development, the Socialist movement in
this country, as has been remarked by many of those who
have studied it, is more closely affiliated with that of the con-
tinent of Europe than with that of Great Britain.

The American public has been grievously misinformed as to
the development of revolutionary Socialism in this country.
A typical example is the widely noticed article by Prof.
Robert F. Hoxie, entitled, " The Rising Tide of Socialism."

After analyzing the Socialist vote into several contradic-
tory elements, Professor Hoxie concludes : —

"There seems to be a definite law of the development of Socialism
which applies both to the individual and to the group. The law is
this : The creedalism and immoderateness of Socialism, other things
being equal, vary inversely with its age and responsibility. The
average Socialist recruit begins as a theoretical impossibilist and
develops gradually into a constructive opportunist. Add a taste
of real responsibility and he is hard to distinguish from a liberal
reformer." (1)

On the contrary, the "theoretical impossibilists," however
obstructive, have never been more than a handful, and the
revolutionists, in spite of the very considerable and steady
influx of reformers into the movement, have increased still
more rapidly. That is, revolutionary Socialism is growing
in this country — as elsewhere — and a very large and
increasing number of the Socialists are become more and
more revolutionary. From the beginning the American
movement has been radical and the "reformists" have been
heavily outvoted in every Congress of the present Party — in
1901, 1904, 1908, and 1910, while the most prominent revo-
lutionist, Eugene V. Debs, has been its nominee for President
at each Presidential election, since its foundation (1900, 1904,
and 1908). (a)

(°) In her "American Socialism of the Present Day" (p. 252) MissHughan
denies that there are many varieties of American Socialism, and says that tho

175

176 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Aside from a brief experience with the so-called municipal
Socialism in Massachusetts in 1900 and 1902, the national
movement gave little attention to the effort to secure the
actual enactment of immediate reforms until the success of
the Milwaukee Socialists (in 1910) in capturing the city gov-
ernment and electing one of its two Congressmen. There
had always been a program of reforms indorsed by the Social-
ists. But this program had been misnamed "Immediate
Demands," as the Party had concentrated its attention almost
exclusively on its one great demand, the overthrow of capi-
talist government.

In the fall elections of 1910 it was observed for the first
time that certain Socialist candidates in various parts of the
country ran far ahead of the rest of the Socialist ticket, and
that some of those elected to legislatures and local offices
owed their election to this fact. This appeared to indicate
that these candidates had bid for and obtained a large share
of the non-Socialist vote. A cry of alarm was thereupon
raised by many American Socialists. The statement issued
by Mr. Eugene V. Debs on this occasion, entitled "Danger
Ahead," was undoubtedly representative of the views of the
majority. As Mr. Debs has been, on three occasions, the
unanimous choice of the Socialist Party of the United States
as its candidate for the Presidency, he remains unquestion-
ably the most influential member of the Party. I, therefore,
quote his statement at length, as the most , competent esti-
mate obtainable of the present situation as regards reformism
in the American Socialist movement : —

"The danger I see ahead," wrote Mr. Debs, "is that the Socialist
Party at this stage, and under existing conditions, is apt to attract
elements which it cannot assimilate, and that it may be either
weighted down, or torn asunder with internal strife, or that it may
become permeated and corrupted with the spirit of bourgeois reform
to an extent that will practically destroy its virility and efficiency
as a revolutionary organization.

assertion that there are is justified only the many shades of tactical policy
to be found in the Party, " founded usually on corresponding gradations of
emphasis upon the idea of catastrophe."

I do not contend that there are many varieties of Socialism within the
Party either here or in other countries, but I have pointed out that there
are several and that their differences are profound, if not irreconcilable. It is
precisely because they are founded on differences in tactics, i.e. on real instead
of theoretical grounds that they are of such importance, for as long as pres-
ent conditions continue, they are likely to lead farther and farther apart,
while new conditions may only serve to bring new differences.

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 177

"To my mind the working-class character and the revolutionary
integrity of the Socialist Party are of the first importance. All the
votes of the people would do us no good if our party ceased to be a revo-
lutionary party or became only incidentally so, while yielding more and
more to the pressure to modify the principles and program of the Party
for the sake of swelling the vote and hastening the day of its expected
triumph. . . . The truth is that we have not a few members who
regard vote getting as of supreme importance, no matter by what
method the votes may be secured, and this leads them to hold out
inducements and make representations which are not at all compat-
ible with the stern and uncompromising principles of a revolu-
tionary party. They seek to make the Socialist propaganda so
attractive — eliminating whatever may give offense to bourgeois
sensibilities — that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means
of education, and votes thus secured do not properly belong to us and
do injustice to our Party as well as those who cast them. . . . The
election of legislative and administrative officers, here and there
where the Party is still in a crude state and the members econom-
ically unprepared and politically unfit to assume the responsibil-
ities thrust upon them as the result of popular discontent, will
inevitably bring trouble and set the Party back, instead of advanc-
ing it, and while this is to be expected and is to an extent un-
avoidable, we should court no more of that kind of experience than
is necessary to avoid a repetition of it. The Socialist Party has
already achieved some victories of this kind which proved to be
defeats, crushing and humiliating, and from which the party has
not even now, after many years, entirely recovered [referring,
doubtless, to Haverhill and Brockton. — W. E. W.].

"Voting for Socialism is not Socialism any more than a menu
is a meal. . . .

"The votes will come rapidly enough from now on without seek-
ing them, and we should make it clear that the Socialist Party wants
the votes only of those who want Socialism, and that, above all,
as a revolutionary party of the working class, it discountenances
vote seeking for the sake of votes and holds in contempt office seek-
ing for the sake of office. These belong entirely to capitalist parties
with their bosses and their boodle and have no place in a party whose
shibboleth is emancipation." (2) (My italics.)

After Mr. Debs, Mr. Charles Edward Russell is now, per-
haps, the most trusted of American Socialists. His state-
ment, made a few months later (see the International
Socialist Review for March, 1912), reaches identical conclu-
sions. As it is made from the entirely independent stand-
point of the observations of a practical journalist as to polit-
ical methods, it strongly reenforces and supplements Mr.
Debs's conclusions, drawn chiefly from labor union experience.

178 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

As I have already quoted Mr. Russell at length in the pre-
vious chapter, a few paragraphs will give a sufficient idea of
this important declaration : —

" Let us suppose in this country," writes Mr. Russell, " a politi-
cal party with a program that proposes a great and radical trans-
formation of the existing system of society, and proposes it upon
lofty grounds of the highest welfare of mankind. Let us suppose
that it is based upon vital and enduring truth, and that the success
of its ideals would mean the emancipation of the race.

" If such a party should go into the dirty game of practical poli-
tics, seeking success by compromise and bargain, striving to put
men into office, dealing for place and recognition, concerned about
the good opinion of its enemies, elated when men spoke well of it,
depressed by evil report, tacking and shifting, taking advantage of
a local issue here and of a temporary unrest there, intent upon the
goal of this office or that, it would inevitably fall into the pit that
has engulfed all other parties. Nothing on earth could save it.

" But suppose a party that kept forever in full sight the ultimate
goal, and never once varied from it. Suppose that it strove to increase
its vote for this object and for none other. . . . Suppose it re-
garded its vote as the index of its converts, and sought for such
votes and for none others. Suppose the entire body was convinced
of the party's full program, aims, and philosophy. Suppose that
all other men knew that this growing party was thus convinced and
thus determined, and that its growth menaced every day more and
more the existing structure of society, menaced it with overthrow
and a new structure. What then ?

" Such a party would be the greatest political power that ever
existed in this or any other country. It would drive the other
parties before it like sand before a wind. They would be compelled
to adopt one after another the expedients of reform to head off the
increasing threat of this one party's progress towards the revolu-
tionary ideal. But this one party would have no more need to
waste its time upon palliative measures than it would have to soil
itself with the dirt of practical politics and the bargain counter.
The other parties would do all that and do it well. The one party
would be concerned with nothing but making converts to its phi-
losophy and preparing for the revolution that its steadfast course
would render inevitable. Such a party would represent the highest
possible efficiency in politics, the greatest force in the State, and the
ultimate triumph of its full philosophy would be beyond question."

Thus we see that in America reformism is regarded as a
dangerous innovation, and that, before it had finished its
second prosperous year, it had been abjured by those who
have the best claim to speak for the American Party.

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 179

Nevertheless it still persists and, indeed, continues to develop
rapidly — if less rapidly than the opposite, or revolutionary,
policy — and deserves the most careful consideration.

While "reformism" only became a practical issue in the
American Party in 1910, it had its beginnings much earlier.
The Milwaukee Socialists had set on the "reformist" course
even before the formation of the present national party (in
1900). Even at this early time they had developed what the
other Socialists had sought to avoid, a "leader" — in the
person of Mr. Victor Berger. At first editor of the local
German Socialist organ, the Vorwaerts, then of the Social-
Democratic Herald, acknowledged leader at the time of the
municipal victory in the spring of 1910, and now the American
Party's first member of Congress, Mr. Berger has not merely
been the Milwaukee organization's chief spokesman, organizer,
and candidate throughout this period, but he has come to be
the chief spokesman of the present reformist wing of the
American Party. His editorials and speeches as Congress-
man, and the policies of the Milwaukee municipal adminis-
tration, now so much in the public eye, will afford a fairly
correct idea of the main features both of the Socialism that has
so far prevailed in Milwaukee, and of American "reformism"
in general.

"Socialism is an epoch of human history which will no
doubt last many hundred years, possibly a thousand years,"
wrote Mr. Berger, editorially, in 1910. "Certainly a move-
ment whose aims are spread out over a period like that need
have no terrors for the most conservative," commented
Senator La Follette, with perhaps justifiable humor.

If Socialism is to become positive, said Mr. Berger again,
it must "conduct the everyday fight for the practical revo-
lution of every day." Like the word "Socialism," Mr.
Berger retains the word "revolution," but practically it
comes to mean much the same as its antithesis, everyday
reform.

It has been Mr. Berger's declared purpose from the be-
ginning to turn the Milwaukee Party aside from the tactics
of the International movement to those of the "revisionist"
minority that has been so thoroughly crushed at the German
and International Congresses. (See Chapter VII.) "The
tactics of the American Socialist Party," he wrote editorially
in 1901, "if that party is to live and succeed — can only be the
much abused and much misunderstood Bernstein doctrine."

180 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"In America for the first time in history," he added, "we
find an oppressed class with the same fundamental rights as
the ruling class — the right of universal suffrage. . . ." (3)

It was the impression of many of the earlier German Social-
ists in this country that political democracy already existed in
America and that it was only necessary to make use of it to
establish a new social order. The devices the framers of our
Constitution employed to prevent such an outcome, the wide-
spread distribution of property, especially of farms, disfran-
chisement in the South and elsewhere, etc., were all considered
as small matters compared to the difficulties Socialists faced
in Germany and other countries. Many have come more
recently to recognize, with Mr. Louis Boudin, that the move-
ment "will have to learn that in this country, as in Germany
or other alien lands, the fight is on not only for the use of its
power by the working class, but for the possession of real
political power by the masses of the people." Neither in
this country nor in any other does the oppressed class have
"the same fundamental rights as the ruling class." In
America the working class have not even an approximately
equal right to the ballot, because of local property, literacy,
residence, and other qualifications, as alluded to in an earlier
chapter, and it is at least doubtful whether the workers are
in a more favorable position here than elsewhere to gain final
and effective control of the government without physical
revolution (as Mr. Berger himself has admitted; see
Chapter VI).

In explanation of what he meant by the Bernstein doctrine,
Mr. Berger wrote in 1902: "Others condemn every reform
which is to precede the 'Great Revolution.' . . . Nothing
can be more absurd. . . . Progress is not attained by simply
waiting for a majority of people, for the general reconstruc-
tion, for the promised hour of deliverance. . . . We wicked
'opportunists' want action. . . . We want to reconstruct
society, and we must go to work without delay, and work
ceaselessly for the cooperative Commonwealth, the ideal of
the future. But we want to change conditions now. We
stand for scientific Socialism." (4)

It is quite true that there was a Socialist Party in this
country before 1900, a large part of which ridiculed every
reform that can come before the expected revolution, but
these " Impossibilists " are now a dwindling handful. Nearly
every Socialist now advocates all progressive reforms, but

"REFORMISM'! IN THE UNITED STATES 181

different views obtain as to which of these reforms do, and
which of them do not, properly come within the Socialists'
sphere of action.

Mr. Berger's opinion is that the Socialists should take the
lead in practically all immediate reform activities, and be-
littles all other reformers. No sooner had Senator La
Follette appeared on the political horizon in 1904 than Mr.
Berger classed him with Mr. Bryan, as "visionary." (5)
And after Senator La Follette had become recognized as
perhaps the most effective radical the country has produced,
Mr. Berger still persisted in referring to him as "personally
honest, but politically dishonest," and was quoted as saying,
with particular reference to the Senator and his ideas of
reform, and to the great satisfaction of the reactionary press :
"An insurgent is 60 per cent of old disgruntled politician,
30 per cent clear hypocrisy, 9 per cent nothing, and 1 per cent
Socialism. Put in a bottle and shake well before using and
you will have a so-called 'progressive.'" (6)

Let us see how the Socialist platform in Wisconsin differs
from that of the insurgent Republicans and Democrats. It
begins with the statement that the movement aims at
"better food, better houses, sufficient sleep, more leisure,
more education, and more culture." All progressive and
honest reform movements stand for all these things and,
as I have shown, promise gradually to get them. Under
capitalism per capita wealth and income are increased
rapidly and the capitalists can well afford to grant to the
workers more and more of all the things mentioned, not out
of fear of Socialism, but to provide in the future for that
steady increase of industrial efficiency which is destined to
be the greatest source of future profits.

The platform goes on to state that "the final aim of the
Social-Democratic Party is the emancipation of the producers
and the abolition of the capitalist system" and describes the
list of reforms it proposes as "mere palliatives, capable of
being carried out even under present conditions." But it also
suggests that these measures are in part, though not all, Social-
istic, whereas a careful comparison with the Democratic and
Republican platforms, especially the latter, shows that they
are practically all adopted by the capitalist parties (not only
in Wisconsin, but in States where the Socialists have no
representation whatever). If the Social-Democrats of Wis-
consin demand more government ownership and labor legis-

182 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

lation, the Republicans are somewhat more insistent on
certain extensions of political democracy — as in the demand
for less partisan primaries.

The New York Socialist platform makes very similar
demands to that of Wisconsin, but precedes them by the long
explanation (see Chapter VI) of the Socialist view of the
class struggle, which the Wisconsin platform barely men-
tions, while containing declarations that might be interpre-
tated as contradicting it. The Wisconsin idea is that a Social-
ist minority in the nation has actual power to obtain reforms
that will advance us towards Socialism and that would not other-
wise be obtained. The New York idea is that a Socialist mi-
nority can have no other reforming power than any honest reform
minority, unless Socialism has actually won or is about to win
a majority.

The legislature of Wisconsin has doubtless gone somewhat
faster than those of other "progressive" States, on account
of the presence of the "Social-Democrats." It has passed
the latters' resolutions, for example, calling for the govern-
ment ownership of coal mines and of such railroad, telegraph,
telephone, and express companies as pass into the hands of
receivers, and also to apply incomes from natural resources
to old-age pensions as well as other resolutions already men-
tioned. But an inspection of the resolutions of the legisla-
tures of other States where there are no Socialist legislators
and only a relatively small per cent of Socialists shows action
almost if not quite as radical. This and the fact that a very
radical tendency appeared in Wisconsin when Mr. La Follette
was governor and before Socialism had any apparent power in
that State, suggests that the influence of the latter has been
entirely secondary.

The Social-Democratic Herald complains significantly, at
a later date, of "the cowardly and hypocritical Socialistic
platforms of the two older parties," while Mr. Berger was
lately predicting that Senator La Follette would be "told to
get out" of the Republican Party. The reformer who was so
recently "retrogressive" had now become a rival in reform.
Mr. Berger, however, claims that he does not object when
reformers "steal the Socialist thunder." If both are striv-
ing after the "immediately attainable," how indeed could
there be any lasting conflict, or serious difference of opinion ?
Or if there is to be any difference at all between Socialists
and "Insurgents," is it not clear that the Socialists must

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 183

reject, absolutely, Berger's principles, and follow Bebel's
advice (quoted below), i.e. concentrate their attention exclu-
sively on "thunder" which the enemy will not and cannot steal ?

But perhaps an even more striking indication of the nature
of Milwaukee Socialism is shown by the very general wel-
come it has received among capitalist organs of all parties,
from the Outlook, Collier's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post,
and the American Magazine, to the New York Journal, the
New York World, the Chicago Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal,
and other capitalist papers all over the country. The New
York Journal stated editorially after the municipal election of
1910, that won Milwaukee for the Socialists of the Berger
School , that the men of Milwaukee who have accumulated *
millions show no signs of fear and that "before the election
many of the biggest Milwaukee business men (including
at least two of the brewers) had expressed themselves pri-
vately in admiration of Mr. Berger and his character and his
purposes." (My italics.) (7)

La Follette's Weekly on this occasion quoted from an edi-
torial of Mr. Berger in which he had written : "We must show
the people of Milwaukee that the philosophy of international
Socialism can be applied and will be applied to the local situa-
tion, and that it can be applied with advantage to any Ameri-
can city of the present day. ... It is our duty to give this
city the best kind of an administration that a modern city
can get under the present system, and the present laws." (My
italics.) La Follette's repeats the phrase in italics and adds
that this policy contains "nothing to arouse fear on the part
of the business interests that is tangible enough to be felt or
genuine enough to be contagious," that the people want
"new blood in the city offices," "had confidence in the
Socialist candidates," and "are not afraid of a name."

I have mentioned Liebknecht's remark that the enemy's
praise is a sign of failure. Debs in this country is reported
as saying, "When the political' or economic leaders of the
wage worker are recommended for their good sense and wise
action by capitalists, it is proof that they have become mis-
leaders and cannot be trusted."

It may be imagined that the revolutionary Socialists have '
never approved these tactics of Mr. Berger's and do so less to-
day than ever. His anti-immigration proposals were defeated
by a large majority at the last Socialist congress and some of
the best-known Socialists and organs of Socialist opinion have

184 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

definitely repudiated his policy. Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes,
formerly a member of the National Executive Committee,
declared publicly, after the Milwaukee victory of 1910, that
the Milwaukee Socialists "had compromised with capitalism"
by their campaign utterances, and in certain instances had
acted as "mere reformers, not as Socialists at all." It is not
surprising that the anti-Socialist reform press thereupon took
up the cudgels in behalf of Mr. Berger, including the New York
World, the Chicago Tribune, and Milwaukee Journal. The
last-named paper very curiously claimed that, wherever
Socialists "have been intrusted with the powers of the gov-
ernment, " they have taken a similar course to that of Mr.
Berger. This is that very obvious truth of which I have
spoken in preceding chapters, namely, that when Socialists
have allowed themselves to be saddled with the responsi-
bilities of some department or local branch of government,
without having the sovereign power needed to apply Socialist
principles, they have frequently found themselves in an un-
tenable situation. The Socialists have been the first to
recognize this, and for this reason oppose any entrance of
Socialists into capitalist governments, i.e. their acceptance
of minority positions in national cabinets or councils of State.
(See Chapters II, VI, and VII.)

Expressing the belief of the overwhelming majority of
those who are watching the progress of affairs in Milwaukee,
the Journal of that city stated, "What they [the Socialists]
are doing [in Milwaukee] is not essentially Socialistic, though
some of the reforms they propose are Socialistic in tendency."
This need not be taken to mean that the Milwaukee reforms
are supposed to tend to Socialism as Socialists in general
understand it, but rather to that capitalistic collectivism to
which Mr. Taft refers when he says that in the present regu-
lation of the railroads "we have gone a long way in the direc-
tion of State Socialism."

Mr. Stokes's comment upon many widely published de-
fenses of the Milwaukee Socialists by anti-Socialists was
published in a letter to the New York World which sums up
admirably the International standpoint : " It is surely public
opinion out of office and not the party in office," wrote Mr.
Stokes, "that does the most for progress in this country, and
it seems to me exceedingly doubtful whether any party in
power has ever led public opinion effectively at any time.
I share with very many Socialists the view that it is entirely

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 185

fallacious to suppose that more can be done at this stage of
the world's progress through politics, than through 'educa-
tion, agitation, and perpetual criticism.'"

I have referred to Mr. Berger as a "reformist" to distin-
guish his policies from the professed opportunism of some of
the British Socialists. But I have also noted that his tactics
and philosophy, as both he and they have publicly acknowl-
edged, are alike at many points. For example, his views,
like theirs, often seem less democratic than those of many
non-Socialist radicals, or even of the average American.
Years after the labor unions and the farmers of most of the
States had indorsed direct legislation, and in a year when it
wras already becoming the law of several States, Mr. Berger,
looking out for the interests of what he and his associates
frankly call the "political machine" of the Wisconsin Party,
damned it by faint praise, though it was an element of his own
platform ; and he had claimed credit for having first proposed
it in Wisconsin. He acknowledged that the Initiative and
Referendum make towards Socialism and are the surest way
in the end, but urged that they are "also the longest way,"
and wrote in the Social-Democratic Herald: —

"The real class conscious proletariat is still in a minority, and
liable to stay so for a time to come. It can only show results by
fighting as a well-organized, compact mass.

"But the initiative, the referendum, and the right to recall have
a tendency to destroy parties and loosen tightly knit political or-
ganizations.

"Therefore, while the Socialist Party stands for direct legislation
as a democratic measure, we are well aware that the working class
will be helped very little by getting it. We are well aware that the
proletariat, before all things, must get more economic and politi-
cal, strength — more education and more wisdom. That, besides
teaching cooperation, we must build political machines." (3) (My
italics.)

On the question of Woman Suffrage, also, Mr. Berger long
showed a similarly hesitating attitude, sajnng that intelligent
women "have always exercised great political power" even
without the ballot ; doubting whether women's vote would
help the advance of humanity "in the coming time of transi-
tion." saying this is a question of fact on which Socialists may
honestly differ, and urging that "no one will deny that the
great majority of the women of the present day — and that

186 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

is the only point we can view now, are illiberal, unprogressive,
and reactionary to a greater extent than the men of the same
stratum of society." (The italics are mine.) Finally, Mr.
Berger concluded as follows, twice throwing the balance of
his opinion from one scale into another : —

"Now, if all this is correct, female suffrage, for generations to
come, will simply mean the deliberate doubting of the strength
of a certain church, — will mean a great addition to the forces of
ignorance and reaction. . . .

"However, we have woman suffrage in our platform, and we
should stand by it. Because in the end it will help to interest the
other half of humanity in social and political affairs, and it will be of
great educational value on both women and men. . . .

"Nevertheless, it is asking a great deal of the proletariat when
we are requested to delay the efficiency of our movement for genera-
tions on that count. And we surely ought not to lay such stress
on this one point as to injure the progress of the general political
and economic movement — the success of which is bound to help
the women as much as the men." (9) (The italics are mine.)

It is no wonder, with such a lukewarm advocacy of its own
platform by the Party's organ and its chief spokesman, that
some of the lesser figures in the Milwaukee movement —
such as certain Socialist aldermen — seem to have lost the
road altogether until even Mr. Berger has been forced to call
a halt. For the leader of a "political machine," to use Mr.
Berger's own expression, may allow himself certain liberties;
but when his followers do the same, disintegration is in sight.
Witness Mr. Berger's words, written only a few weeks after
the Socialist victory in Milwaukee ; words which seem to
indicate that the tendencies he complains of were the direct
result, not of slow degeneration, but of the local Party's
reformistic teachings and campaign methods : —

"The most dangerous part of the situation is that some of our
comrafles seem to forget that we are a Socialist Party.

"They not only begin to imitate the ways and methods of the
old parties, but even their reasoning and their thoughts are getting
to be more bourgeois and less proletarian. To some of these men the
holding of the office — whatever the office may be — seems to be
the final aim of the Socialist Party. These poor sticks do not know
that there are many Socialists who deplore that the necessity of
electing and appointing officeholders will make it twice as hard
to keep the Socialist Party pure in this country, than in other
countries where the movement is relieved of this duty and danger.

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 187

"And even some of the aldermen seem to have lost their Socialist
class consciousness — if they ever had any."

It is difficult to see how Mr. Berger can expect to maintain
respect for principles that he teaches and applies so loosely
himself. It is, furthermore, difficult to understand how he
expects submission to the decisions of his organization when
he himself has been on the verge of revolt both against the
national and international movement. He has always
avowed his profound disagreement with the methods of the
Socialists in practically every State but his own. He and
his associates were at one moment so far from the national
and international principle that they sought to support a
non-Socialist candidate for judge — on the specious ground
that no Socialist was nominated. But the National Congress
condemned and forbade such action by an overwhelming
majority. Mr. Berger 's unwillingness to act with his organi-
zation even went so far at one point that he was punished by
a temporary suspension from the National Executive Com-
mittee. And, finally, he even threatened in Socialist Berlin
that if the American Party, which he claimed held his views
on immigration, was not allowed to have its way, it would
pay no attention to the decision of the Internationa] Congress ;
though at the very time he was threatening rebellion the
decision of the recent Congress showed that two-thirds of the
American Party stood, not with him, but with the Inter-
national Movement. Should he be surprised if Milwaukee
aldermen, like himself, interpret Socialism as they see fit,
and forget that they are a part of a Socialist Party ?

But while Mr. Berger and the present policies that are
guiding American "reformist" Socialists differ profoundly
from those of the International movement, and resemble in
some ways the policies of the non-Socialist reformers of Wis-
consin and other States, in other respects there is a difference.
The labor policy of the collectivist reformers and of the "re-
formist" Socialists might be expected to differ somewhat
— not in what is ordinarily called the labor legislation, i.e.
factory reform, workingmen's compensation, old age pensions,
etc., but in their attitude to labor organizations and the labor
struggle : strikes, boycotts, and injunctions.

Senator La Follette's followers are in the overwhelming ma-
jority farmers ; the Wisconsin "Social -Democrats," as they call
themselves, have secured little more than one per cent of the

188 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

vote of the State outside of Milwaukee and a few other towns,
and even less in the country. On the other hand, the ma-
jority of the workingmen of Milwaukee and several other
towns vote for the Socialists, while those who do not are
usually not followers of Senator La Follette, but Catholics
and Democrats. The Wisconsin "Insurgents" have as yet
by no means taken the usual capitalist position in the struggle
between employers and labor unions, but they have shown
repeatedly that they are conscious that they represent pri-
marily the small property holders and the business com-
munity generally, including the small shareholders of the
"trusts."

La Follette 's Weekly, in an important article defending direct
legislation and the recall, says that the reason "we, the peo-
ple," do not give enough attention to public measures is that
"we are so busy with our private affairs," and continues:
"Indeed, our success in our private enterprises, nay even
equality of opportunity to engage in private enterprises, is
coming more and more to depend upon the measure of pro-
tection which we may receive through our government from
the unjust encroachments of the power of centralized Big
Business." These "State Socialist" radicals represent pri-
marily small business men and independent farmers, who are
often employers, and their friendship to employees will neces-
sarily have to be subordinated whenever the two interests
come into conflict.

Mr. Berger and the Wisconsin Social-Democrats on the
other hand represent primarily the workingmen of the cities,
especially those who are so fortunate as to be members of
labor unions. The "Social Democrats" appeal, however,
for the votes of the farmers, of "the small business man," and
of "the large business men who are decent employers";
they announce that the rights of corporations will be pro-
tected under their administrations, declare that they who
"take the risks of business" are entitled "to a fair return" ;
and have convinced many that they are not for the
present anti-capitalistic in their policy, though they have not
as yet succeeded in getting very much capitalistic support.

For many years, indeed, the struggle between employers
and unions has been less acute in Milwaukee than in many
other large cities, while wages and conditions are on the whole
no better. The Milwaukee Socialists have repeatedly called
the attention of employers to this relative industrial peace

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 189

and have attributed it to their influence, much to the disgust
of the more militant Socialists, who claim that strikes are
the only indication of a fighting spirit on the part of the
workers. Mr. Berger, for example, has explained "the rare
occurrence of strikes in Milwaukee" as being due largely to
the Social-Democrats of that city who, he says, "have opposed
almost every strike that has been declared here." (10)

Certainly the attitude of the Socialists towards the em-
ployers in one of the largest industries, brewing, has on the
whole been exceptionally friendly, as evidenced among other
things by the Socialists' appointment of one of a leading
brewery manager (who was not even a Socialist) as debt com-
missioner of the city, and their active campaign for the
brewing interests, including a denunciation of county option,
though this measure has already been indorsed by both of
the capitalistic parties even in the liquor-producing State of
Kentucky, as well as elsewhere, and is favored by very many
Socialists, not as a means of advancing prohibition, but as
the fairest present way of settling the controversy.

But even relative peace between capital and labor is not
lasting in our present society and it will scarcely last in Mil-
waukee. Already there are signs of what is likely to happen,
and the business-men admirers of Milwaukee Socialism are
beginning to drop away. A few more strikes, and Berger
and his associates may be forced to abandon completely
their claim that it is to the interest of employers, with some
exceptions, to elect Socialists to office.

The situation after a recent strike in Milwaukee is thus
summed up by the New York Volkszeitung, a great admirer,
on the whole, of the Milwaukee movement : —

"The new measures which are taken for the betterment of the
city transportation system, for the preparation of better residence
conditions and parks for the poorer classes of the people," says the
Volkszeitung, "did not much disturb Milwaukee's 'Best Society.'
Rather the opposite. For all these things did not at the bottom
harm their interests, but were, on the contrary, quite to their taste,
in so far as they rather increased than injured the pleasure of their
own lives.

"But at last what had to happen, did happen. The moment
a great conflict between capital and labor broke out in the great
community of Milwaukee, the caliber of the city administration
was bound to show itself. . . .

"The prohibition which Mayor Seidel issued to the police, not
to interfere for either side, his grounds and those of the city council's

190 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

presiding officer, Comrade Melms, their instructions to the striking
' garment workers ' how they should conduct the strike in order to
win a victory, the admonition that they might safely call a scab a
scab without official interference — all this is of decisive importance,
not only for its momentary effect on the Milwaukee strike, but
especially for the Socialist propaganda, for the demonstration of
the tremendous advantage the working people can get even at the
present moment by the election of Socialist candidates. . . .

"And now it is all over with the half well-disposed attitude that
had been assumed towards our comrades in the city administration.
With burning words the capitalistic and commercial authorities
protest against these official expressions, as being likely to disturb
'law and order' and as having the object of stirring up the class
struggle and of undermining respect for the law.

"That came about which must come about, if our Milwaukee
comrades did their duty. And they have done it, at the right
moment, and without hesitation. And this must never be forgotten.
But the real battle between them and their capitalist opponent
begins now for the first time."

Here is the keynote of the situation. Only as more and
more serious strikes occur will the Milwaukee movement
be forced to emphasize its labor unionism rather than its
reforms. It will then, in all probability, be forced to take
up an aggressive labor-union attitude like that of the non-
Socialist Labor Party in San Francisco. One action at least
of Mayor McCarthy in the latter city was decidedly more
threatening to the local employing interests than any taken
in Milwaukee, which after all had met the approval of one of
the capitalistic papers (i.e. the Free Press). The Bulletin of
the United Garment Workers, though grateful for the atti-
tude of the mayor in their Milwaukee strike, uses language
just as laudatory concerning this action of the anti-Socialist
Labor mayor of San Francisco. (6)

(6) The following account is taken from the Garment Workers' Bulletin : —
"Recently the hod carriers in San Francisco presented a petition to their
employers for increased pay and pressed for its consideration. This gave the
members of the National Association of Manufacturers the opportunity they
longed for to open war in San Francisco, and they promptly availed themselves
of it. The petition was refused, of course, and two large lime manufacturers in
the city took a hand. The contractors resolved on heroic measures, and
work was stopped on some sixty buildings to 'bring labor to its senses.'
Then Mayor McCarthy came into the controversy. He called his board
of public workers together and remarked : ' I see all the contractors are
tying up work because of the hod carriers' request. Better notify these
fellows to at once clear all streets of building material before these structures
and to move away those elevated walks and everything else from the streets.'
The board so ordered. Then Mr. McCarthy said : ' Notice that those lime
fellows are taking quite an interest in starting trouble. Guess we had better

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 191

The "reformist" Socialists lay much stress upon their
loyalty to existing labor unions. Some even favor the crea-
tion of a non-Socialist Labor Party, more or less like those of
San Francisco or Australia or Great Britain. Indeed, the
reformists have often acknowledged their close kinship with
the semi-Socialist wing of the British Labour Party, and this
relationship is recognized by the latter. All Socialists will
agree that even the reformists, as a rule, represent the in-
terests of the labor-union movement better than other parties ;
but the Socialist Party is vastly more than a mere reformist
trade-union party, and most Socialists feel that to reduce
it to this role would be to deprive it of the larger part of its
power even to help the unions.

In the statement of Mr. Debs already quoted in part in
this chapter, he also expresses the opposition of the Socialist
majority to converting the organization into a mere trade-
union Party : —

"There is a disposition on the part of some to join hands with
reactionary trade unionists in local emergencies and in certain
temporary situations to effect some specific purpose, which may or
may not be in harmony with our revolutionary program. No
possible good can come of any kind of a political alliance, ex-
pressed or implied, with trade unions or the leaders of trade unions
who are opposed to Socialism and only turn to it for use in some
extremity, the fruit of their own reactionary policy.

"Of course we want the support of trade unionists, but only of
those who believe in Socialism and are ready to vote and work with
us for the overthrow of capitalism."

It would seem from the expressions of Milwaukee Socialists
that they, in direct opposition to the policy of Mr. Debs,
are working by opportunist methods towards a trade union
party, and that form of collectivism advocated by the Labor
Parties of Great Britain and Australia. But they have been
in power now in Milwaukee for nearly two years and have had
a strong contingent in the Wisconsin legislature, while their
representative in Congress has had time to define his atti-
tude in a series of bills and resolutions. We are in a position,
then, to judge their policy not by their words alone, but also
by their acts.

notify them that their temporary permits for railroad spurs to their plants
are no longer in force.' And due notice went forth. The result was
that the trouble with the hod carriers was settled in a week, and the contem-
plated industrial war in the city was indefinitely postponed. ..."

192 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Let us first examine their municipal policy. This assumes
special importance since the installation of Socialist officials
in Berkeley (California), Butte (Montana), Flint (Michigan),
several smaller towns in Kansas, Illinois, and other States, as
a result of the elections of April, 1911. To these victories
have recently been added others (in November, 1911) in
Schenectady (New York), Lima and Lorain (Ohio), New-
castle (Pennsylvania), besides very large votes or the election
of minor officials in many places in Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York,
New Jersey, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin,
Oregon, Washington, Utah, California, and other States.

While the officials elected received in nearly every case only
a plurality (this is true also of most of those elected in Mil-
waukee), and local or temporary issues existed in many in-
stances, which caused the Socialist Party to be used largely
for purposes of protest, a part of the vote was undoubtedly
cast for a type of municipal reform somewhat more radical
than other parties have, as a rule, been ready to offer in this
country ; up to the present time, at least, a considerable part
of the vote is undoubtedly to be accredited to convinced
Socialists.

Milwaukee being as yet the only important example of an
important American municipality that has rested in Socialist
hands for any considerable period, I shall confine myself
largely to the discussion of the movement in that city. Some
of those already in office in other places have, moreover, taken
the Milwaukee policy as their model and announced their in-
tention to follow it. Mayor Seidel's statement after a year
in office, and the explanations of the Rev. Carl Thompson
(the city clerk) made about the same time, cover the essential
points for the present discussion.

Both the statement of the mayor and that of the city
clerk are concerned with matters that interest primarily
the business man and taxpayer. Mr. Thompson disclaims
that there is anything essentially new even in the Socialists'
plans, to say nothing of their performances. He says of the
most discussed municipal projects under consideration by the
Socialist administration that all were advocated either by
former administrations, by one or both of the older parties or
by some of their leading members. He mentions the proposed
river park, railway terminal station, and electric lighting
plans, as well as home rule for Milwaukee, as being all

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 193

strictly conservative projects (as they are) . Other plans men-
tioned by Mayor Seidel — harbor improvements, playgrounds,
a sterilization plant, and isolation hospital — are approved,
if not by the conservatives of Milwaukee, at least by those of
many other cities. Some minor and less expensive proposals,
a child welfare commission, a board of recreation, and muni-
cipal dances are somewhat more novel. These are all the
social reforms mentioned by the mayor, as planned or accom-
plished, with the exception of those that have to do primarily
with efficiency or economy in municipal administration, such
as improvement in street cleaning, sanitary inspection and
inspection of weights and measures, which all conservative
reform administration seek to bring about; many cities,
especially abroad, having been eminently successful in this
direction.

To secure the political support of taxpayers and business
men, further evidence was required to show that the adminis-
tration is neither doing nor likely to do anything unprece-
dented. They want a safe and sane business policy, and
assurances that new sources of income will, if possible, be
secured and applied to the reduction of taxation ; or that, in
case taxes are raised, municipal reforms will so improve busi-
ness and rental values, as to bring into their pockets more
than the increased taxation has cost them.

Mayor Seidel and City Clerk Thompson presented entirely
satisfactory evidences on all these points. Business methods
have been introduced, a " complete inventory" of the prop-
erty of the city is being made, "blanket appropriations" are
done away with, "a new system of voucher bills has been
installed," all the departments are being brought on "a uni-
form accounting basis." Finally, taxable property is being
listed that was formerly overlooked, and the city is more
careful in settling financial claims against it. Mayor Seidel
and City Clerk Thompson both promise that taxes will
not be increased; the former points to the new resources
from property that had escaped taxation and to the future
rise in value of land the city intends to purchase, the latter
refers to "revenue-producing enterprises which will relieve
the burden of taxation rather than increase it." Neither
goes so far as to suggest any plan, like the present law of
Great Britain, introduced by a capitalist government, accord-
ing to which not only are the taxes of the wealthy raised, but
one fifth of the future increase of value of city lands, as being

194 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

due to the community, accrues to the public treasury. It is
true that such measures would have to be approved by the
State of Wisconsin, but this would not prevent them being
made the one prominent issue in the city campaign, and in-
sistently demanded until they are obtained. The mayor's
attitude on this tax question, which underlies all others, far
from being Socialistic, is not even radical.

The tendency seems to have been widespread in the municipal
campaigns undertaken by the Socialists in the fall of 1911, to
abandon even radical, though capitalistic, municipal reformers'
policy of raising new taxes to pay for reforms that bring modest
benefits to the workers, but chiefly raise realty values and promote
the interests of " business," and to substitute for this the conserva-
tive policy of reducing taxes. Thus the Bridgeport Socialist advised
the voters : —

" Municipal ownership means cheaper water, cheaper light,
cheaper gas, cheaper electricity, and a steady revenue into the city
treasury which would reduce taxes." (Italics mine.) (11)

One might infer that the masses of Bridgeport were already suffi-
ciently supplied with schools, parks, and all the free services a mu-
nicipality can give.

Of course it is true that a considerable part of the wage earners
in our small cities own their own homes (subject often to heavy
mortgages) and, oilier things remaining as they are, would like to
have taxes reduced. But two facts are indisputable : the average
taxes paid by the wage earners are insignificant compared with
those of the wealthier classes, and the wage earner gets, at first
at least, an equal share in the benefits of most municipal expendi-
tures. The Socialists know that most of the economic benefits are
later absorbed by increasing rents ; and that capitalist judges and
State governments will see to it that only such expenditures are
allowed as have this result, or such as have the effect, through im-
proving efficiency, of increasing profits faster than wages. Socialists
recognize, however, that at least municipal collectivism is in the line
of capitalist progress, with some incidental benefits to labor, while
the policy of decreasing taxes on the unearned increment of land is
nothing less than reaction.

The only popular ground on which such a policy could be de-
fended is the fallacy that landlords transmit to tenants the fluctua-
tions in taxes, in the form of increased or diminished rents. Even
if this were true, the tenants would be as likely as not to profit by
enlarged municipal expenditures (i.e. in spite of paying for a minor
part of their cost). But in the large cities, as a matter of fact,
90 per cent of the wage earners, who are tenants, and not home
owners, do not feel these fluctuations at all. Increased land taxes
do not as a rule cause an increase in average rents. Increased land

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 195

taxes force unimproved land upon the market, and compel its im-
provement, to escape loss in holding it unimproved and idle. The
resulting increased competition for tenants operates on the average
to reduce rents, not to increase them. The taxes are paid at the cost
of reduced profits for the landlord — until population begins to in-
crease more rapidly than taxes. The capitalist leaders perceive the
truth as regards this plainly enough. Thus, in their anxiety to get
both landlord and capitalist support in the last municipal cam-
paign in New York City, various allied real estate interests claimed
credit for their work in keeping taxes down. Commenting upon
the subject, the New York Times said: "Rents do not rise with
taxes. If they did, the owner would merely need to pass the taxes
along to the renter and be rid of the subject." (12) The next day
Mayor Gaynor in a letter to the Times quoted a message he had
sent to the city council in the previous year in which he had said :
"Every landlord knows that he cannot add the taxes to rents. If
he could, he would not care how high taxes grew. He would simply
throw them on his tenants."

It is difficult, therefore, to see why the tenants of New York City
or Bridgeport should favor lower taxes, so long as they and their
children are in need of further public advantages that increased
taxes would enable the municipalities to supply. To favor reduced
taxes, while private ownership of land prevails, is not Socialism, or
even progressive capitalism. It is, as I have said, reaction.

The New York Volkszeitung expresses in a few words the
correct Socialist attitude on municipal expenditures. After
showing the need of more money for schools, hygienic meas-
ures, etc., it concludes : —

"These increased expenditures of municipalities are thus ab-
solutely necessary if a Socialist city government is to fulfill its tasks.
Since the municipal expenditures must be raised through taxation,
it is evident that a good Socialist city government must raise the
taxes if it is up to the level of its duties. Provided that — as just
remarked — the raising of the taxes is so managed that the possess-
ing classes are hit by it and not the poor and the workingmen.

" Most of the Socialist municipal administrations have been shat-
tered hitherto by the tax question ; that has been especially evident
in France, where the Socialists lost the towns captured by them
because their administration appeared to be more costly than those
of their capitalist predecessors. That has happened especially
wherever the small capitalist element played a role in the Socialist
movement.

"We shall undoubtedly have this experience in America, also,
if we do not make it clear to the masses of workingmen that good
city government for them means a more expensive city government,

196 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and that they are interested in this increase of the cost of the city
administration." (13)

If the Socialists promise much and perform comparatively .
little, they have as a valid reason the fact that the city does
not have the authority. But opponents can also say, as
does the Milwaukee Journal, that "the administration would
not dare to carry out its promises to engage in municipal
Socialism if it had the authority." For while municipal
"Socialism" or public ownership is perfectly good capitalism,
it is not always good politics in a community where the
small taxpayers dominate.

While the plans for municipal wood and coal yards and
plumbing shops were doubtless abandoned in Milwaukee
by reason of legal limitations, and not merely to please the
small traders, as some have contended, no Socialist reason
can be given for the practical abandonment years ago of the
proposed plan for municipal ownership of street railways.
If the charter prohibited such an important measure as this,
all efforts should have been concentrated on changing the
charter. Socialists do not usually allow their world-wide
policy, or even their present demands to be shaped by a city
charter.

If Mr. Berger had announced earlier and more clearly, and
if he had repeated with sufficient frequency, his recent dec-
laration that Milwaukee is administered by Socialists but does
not have a Socialist administration, he would have avoided a
world of misunderstanding. In fact, if he had enunciated
this principle with sufficient emphasis before the municipal
election of 1910, it is highly probable that the Socialists
would not yet have won the city, and would never have felt
obligated to claim, as they often do now, that Socialists, who
must direct part of their energies towards future results, are
more efficient as practical reformers than non-Socialists, who
are ready to sacrifice every ultimate principle, if they have
any, for immediate achievements.

The whole question between reformists and revolutionaries
refers not so much to the policy of Socialists in control of
municipalities, which is often beyond criticism, as to the
value of municipal activity generally for Socialist purposes.
None deny that it has value, but reformists and revolution-
aries ascribe to it different roles.

There are two reasons why Socialism cannot yet be applied

"REFORMISM'.' IN THE UNITED STATES 197

j

on a municipal scale — one economic and one political. I
do not refer here, of course, to municipal ownership, often
called "municipal Socialism," a typical manifestation of
1 " State Socialism," but to a policy that attempts to make use
of the municipality against the capitalist class.

Such a policy is economically impossible to-day because
it would gradually drive capital to other cities and so in-
directly injure the whole population including the non-
capitalists. Indeed, Mayor Seidel especially denies that he
will allow any "hardship on capital," and City Clerk Thomp-
son gives nearly a newspaper column of statistics to show that
"the business of Milwaukee has continued to expand" since
the Socialists came into power, remarking that "there have
been no serious strikes or labor troubles in Milwaukee for
years" — surely a condition which employers will appreciate.
Nothing could prove more finally than such statements, how
municipal governments at present feel bound to serve the
business interests.

The political limitations of the situation are similar. Prof.
Anton Menger says of Socialism as applied to municipalities,
that "it is necessarily deferred to the time when the Socialist
party will be strong enough to take into its hands the political
power in the whole state or the larger part of it." It is
obviously impossible to force the hands of an intelligent ruling
majority merely by capturing one branch or one local division
of the government. As such branches are captured they will
be prevented from doing anything of importance, or forced
to act only within the limits fixed by the ruling class.

This is especially true in the United States. We have
elaborate forms and external symbols of local self-govern-
ment, and it may really exist — as long as the municipalities
are used for capitalistic purposes. When it is proposed to
use local self-government for Socialist ends, however, it
instantly disappears. Not only do the States interfere,
with the national government ready behind them, but the
centralized judiciary, state and national, is always at hand
to intervene. This is potential centralization, and for the
purposes of preventing radical or Socialist measures the govern-
ment of the United States is as centralized as that of any civi-
lized nation on earth.

Moreover, the semblance of local power given by municipal
victories brings a second difficulty to the Socialists — it
means the election of administrators and judges. Now even

198 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

under the system of potential centralization through the
courts, legislators are useful, for they cannot be forced to serve
capitalism. But government must be carried on and mayors
and judges are practically under the control of higher author-
ities — in the new commission plan of government, they even
do the legislating. In the words of the New York Daily
Catt: —

"The Socialist Legislator finds his task a comparatively easy and
simple one. He proposes or supports every measure of advantage
to the working class in particular and to the great majority of the
people in general, barring such as are of a reactionary character.
But the Socialist executive and the Socialist judge find themselves
in no such simple situation. Their activities are circumscribed
by superior and hostile powers, and by written constitutions adopted
at the dictation of the capitalist class. How to harmonize their
activities with the just demands of the working class for the im-
mediate betterment of its conditions, as well as with the Socialist
program which has for its goal the ultimate overthrow of the capital-
ist social order, and yet not come into such conflict with the superior
and hostile powers as would result in their own removal from office
— this question is bound to assume a gravity not yet perhaps
dreamed of by the majority of American Socialists.

" And yet even now, while our political power is still small, the
charge of opportunism, or the neglect of principle in pursuit of some
practical advantage, is continually being raised, sometimes justly,
sometimes unjustly."

The following from the New York Evening Post, illustrates
both the political and the economic difficulty of enacting
Socialistic or even radical measures in municipalities. It is
taken from a special article on the situation in Schenectady,
where a Socialist, Dr. George R. Lunn had just been elected
mayor : —

"Schenectady is trying hard to take its dose of Socialism philo-
sophically. Its most staid and respectable citizens, who have been
staid and respectable Republicans and Democrats all their life,
console themselves with the thought that, after all, Old Dorp is Old
Dorp — Old Dorp being the affectionate way of referring to Sche-
nectady — and that her best citizens are still her best citizens, and
that Rev. George R. Lunn and all his Socialist crew can't do a great
amount of harm in two years to a city that possesses such an iron-
clad charter as that with which Horace White, when he was a Senator,
endowed every city of the second class in the Empire State. The
conservative element in town back that charter against all the re-
forms that the minister who is to be mayor and his following of
machinists, plumbers, coachmen, and armature winders from the

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 199

General Electric Works, who are going to be common councillors
and other things, can hope to introduce. . . .

"The General Electric works — as everybody agrees — 'made'
Schenectady. Census figures show it and statistics of one sort or
another show it. The concern employs more than 16,000 men and
women — as many persons as there are voters in the whole town.
It owns 275 acres of land, and of this about 60 acres are occupied
with shops and buildings. Its capital stock is valued at $80,000,000.
The General Electric, or as it is called up here, the *G. E.,' has
given work to thousands, has brought a lot of business into town,
has made real estate in hitherto deserted districts valuable. On
the tax assessors' books its property is assessed at $4,500,000.
It is safe to say that this is less than 25 per cent of its true value.

"If Dr. Lunn should attempt to meddle with the. 'G. E.V
assessment, Schenectady knows very well what would happen.
The General Electric Company would pack up and move away to
some other town that is pining for a nice big factory and does not
care much how small taxes it pays. That is the situation. Of
course everybody agrees that the company ought to be paying more,
but when it comes to a question of leaving well enough alone or
losing the company entirely, Schenectady says leave well enough
alone, by all means. The loss of the 'G. E.' works would be a
disaster, from which the Old Dorp would never recover. Why,
even now the company has just opened a brand new plant in Erie,
Philadelphia, and if Schenectady does not behave, what is to pre-
vent the 'G. E.' from moving all its belongings to Erie?

"Dr. Lunn has not had much to say regarding this phase of his
taxation reforms. The day after his election he issued a statement,
however, which showed that he did not intend to do anything ex-
tremely radical : —

" ' In the matter of taxation we have had something to say during
the campaign, but we Socialists are too good economists not to know
that the burdening of our local industries in the way of taxation
above that placed upon them in other cities would be foolhardy.
Under the present system, to which we are opposed, manufacturing
concerns have their rights, and any special burden placed upon them
by one community above that which is placed upon them in other
communities would inevitably and of necessity, from the stand-
point of economics, hinder their progress. We are not in favor
of hindering their progress. We stand for the greatest progress
along every line. We will not only encourage industries in every
way consistent with our principles, but will endeavor to bring new
industries to Schenectady, and furthermore, we will succeed in doing
it.'" (14)

The newly elected mayor is quoted by Collier's Weekly,
as saying : "We are only trying to conduct the city's business

200 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

in the same honest way we should run our own business."
Collier's says that the Socialists generally "make their
impression by mere business honesty and efficiency," distin-
guishes this from what it calls the "harmful kind of Social-
ism, " and concludes that, "watching the actual performances
of those who choose to call themselves Socialists, we are thus
far unable to be filled with terror." (15)

Nearly all the comment at the time of the Socialist munic-
ipal victories in the fall of 1911 pointed out, in similar
terms, the contrast between the very restricted opportunities
they offer for the revolutionary program of Socialism.
The editorial in the Saturday Evening Post is typical : —

"Theoretically Socialism is the most ambitious of political pro-
grams, involving nothing short of a whole-nation-wide or world-wide
revolution; but, except a solitary Congressman and seventeen
members of State legislatures, Socialists so far have been elected only
to local offices, and those usually of an administrative rather than
legislative nature — elected, that is, not to bring in a brand-new, all-
embracing revolutionary program, but to work the lumbering old
bourgeois machine in a little honester, more intelligent, kindlier
manner perhaps than some Republican or Democrat would work it.

" Designing a new world is more fascinating than scrubbing off
some small particular dirt spot on the old one — but less practical."
(My italics.) (16)

Even where revolutionary Socialists carry a municipality,
as they did recently in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, the benefit
to the labor movement is probably only temporary. There
the Socialist administration dismissed the whole police force
and filled their places with Socialists. The result will un-
doubtedly be that the State will either make the police
irremovable, except by some complicated process, or will
still further extend the functions of the State constabulary
in times of strike. The moral effect of the victory in New-
castle, like that in Schenectady, after the bitter labor struggles
of recent years, cannot be questioned, and this, together with
temporary relief from petty persecution by local authorities,
is doubtless worth all the efforts that have been put forth —
provided the Socialists have not promised themselves and
their supporters any larger or more lasting results.

It is in view of difficulties such as these, which exist to
some degree in all countries, that in proportion as Socialists
gain experience in municipal action, they subordinate it
to other forms of activity. Only such "reformists" as are

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 201

ready to abandon the last vestiges of their Socialism persist
in emphasizing a form of action that has a constant tendency
to compel all those involved to give more and more of their
time and energy to serving capitalism. Among the first
Socialist municipalities were those of Lille and Roubaix
in France — which fell a number of years ago into the hands
of Guesdists, the revolutionary or orthodox wing of the party.
Rappoport reports their present position on this question as
presented at the recent Congress at St. Quentin, 1911.

"Among the Guesdists there are no municipal theorists
but a great many practical municipal men, former or present
mayors: Delory (Lille), Paul Constans (Montucon), Com-
pere-Morel, Hubert (Nimes), only to mention those present
at the Congress. Through experience they have learned that
what is called municipal Socialism, is good local government,
but in no sense Socialism. Free meals for school children,
weekly subsidies for child-bearing women, etc., are useful to
the working people ; this is not Socialism, but ' collective
philanthropy' according to Compere-Morel. Reforms are
good, but the main thing is Socialism. The Guesdists are no
adherents of the doctrine, 'all or nothing,' but they are
also no admirers of the new doctrine of municipal Socialism."

There can be little doubt that a few years of experience in
this country will persuade those American Socialists who are
now concentrating so much of their attention on municipal-
ities, to give more of their energies to State legislatures and
to Congress. The present efforts will not be lost, as they can
be easily turned into a new direction. And whatever politi-
cal reaction may seem to take place, after certain illusions
have been shattered, will be a seeming reaction only, and
due to the desertion from the ranks of the supporters of the
Socialist ticket of municipal reformers who never pretended
to be Socialists, but who voted for that Party merely because
no equally reliable non-Socialist reformers were in the field,
or had so good a chance of election. Such separation of the
sheep from the goats will be specially rapid when some varia-
tion of the so-called commission form of government will have
been gradually introduced, particularly where it is accom-
panied by direct legislation and the recall. For then munici-
pal Socialists will be deprived of all opportunity of claiming
this, that, and the other reform as having some peculiar rela-
tion to Socialism. And this day is near at hand.

All municipal reforms that interest property owners and

202 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

non-property owners alike will then be enacted with compara-
tive ease and rapidity, while all political parties, and all pro-
longed political struggles, will center around the conflict between
employers and employees. State and national governments
will see to it that no municipality in the hands of the work-
ing class is allowed to retain any power that it could use to
injure or weaken capitalism. And this specific limitation of
the powers of municipalities that escape local capitalist con-
trol, will be so frequent and open that all the world will see
that Socialists are going to achieve comparatively little by
" capturing" local offices.

I have already mentioned in a general way the position of
the Milwaukee Socialists in the Wisconsin legislature. Let
me return now to their representative in Congress. Mr.
Berger had differentiated himself from previous trade union
Congressmen largely by proposing a series of radical political
reforms : the abolition of the Senate, of the President's
veto, and of the power of the Supreme Court over the legis-
lation of Congress, and a call for a national constitutional con-
vention. Radical as they are, it is probable that these
reforms are only a foreshadowing of the position rapidly being
assumed by a large part of the collectivist but anti-Socialist
"insurgents," and "progressives." Even Mr. Roosevelt and
Justice Harlan, it will be recalled, protest in the strongest terms
against the power of the Supreme Court over legislation, and
the Wisconsin legislature, by no means under Socialist control,
has initiated a call for a national constitutional convention.

In proposing his "old-age pension" bill, Mr. Berger ap-
pended a clause which asserted that the measure should not
be subject to the interpretation of. the Supreme Court, and
showed that Congress had added a similar clause to its Recon-
struction Act in 1868 and that it had later been recognized
by the Supreme Court. Later the Outlook suggested that
this was a remedy less radical than the widely popular
recall of judges, and remarked that it would only be to follow
the constitution of most other countries. (17) Also Senator
Owen, on the same day on which Mr. Berger introduced his
bill, spoke for the recall of federal judges on the floor of the
United States Senate. It is impossible, then, to make any
important distinction between Mr. Berger's proposed politi-
cal reforms, sweeping as they are, and those of other radicals
of the day.

The attitude of many of the "Insurgents" and "Pro-

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 203

gressives" of the West, is also about all that mere trade
unionists could ask for. A large majority of this element in
both parties favors the repeal of the Sherman law as applied
to labor union boycotts, and Senator La Follette and others
stand even for the right of government employees to organize
labor unions. The adoption of the recall of judges, owing
largely to non-Socialist efforts in Oregon, California, and
Arizona, will make anti-union injunctions in strikes and boy-
cotts improbable in the courts of those States, and the widely
accepted proposal for the direct election of the federal judi-
ciary would have a similar effect in the federal courts. It
may be many years before these measures become general or
effective, but there can be no question that they are demanded
by a large, sincere, and well-organized body of opinion outside
of the Socialist Party. The Wisconsin legislature and most
other progressive bodies have so far failed to limit injunctions.
But this has been done in the constitution of Oklahoma, and
I have suggested reasons for believing that this prohibition
may soon be favored by "Progressives" generally.

In the first Socialist speech ever made in Congress, Mr.
Berger laid bare his economic philosophy and program. The
subject was the reduction of the tariff on wool and its manu-
factures, and Mr. Berger defined his position on the tariff as
well as still larger issues. He declared himself practically
a free trader, though of course he did not consider free trade
as a panacea, and his speech, according to the Socialist as
well as other reports, was received with a storm of applause —
especially, of course, from free-trade Democrats.

He pointed out that the manufacturer, having thoroughly
mastered the home market, had found that tariff wars were
shutting him out from the foreign markets he now needs. He
might have added, as evidenced by the nature of the pro-
posed reciprocity treaty with Canada, that many manufac-
turers are more interested in cheap raw material and cheap
food for their workers (cheap food making low wages possible,
as in free-trade Great Britain) than they are in a high tariff,
and this even in some instances where they have a certain
need for protection for the finished product and where no
great export trade is in view.

Mr. Berger forgot England when he said that the tariff
falls on the poor man's head, for England has shown that the
abolition of the tariff does not benefit the poor man in the
slightest degree. Poverty is far more widespread there than

204 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

here. He pointed to the fact that the importation of goods
into the United States was restricted, while that of labor was
not. He forgot that where both are restricted, as in Australia,
the workers are no better off than here.

The arguments employed in Mr. Berger's speech, in so far
as they referred to the tariff, were for the most part not to
be distinguished from those used by the Democrats in behalf
of important capitalistic elements of the population, and hence
the welcome with which they were received by the Democratic
Congress and press. The Socialist matter in the speech relat-
ing only indirectly to the tariff was, of course, less favorably
commented upon.

Mr. Berger's second speech before Congress was also signifi-
cant. It was in support of governmental old-age pensions,
a very radical departure for the United States and difficult of
enactment because of our federal system — but already, as
Mr. Berger said, in force in Great Britain, France, Germany,
Austria, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Since
the legislatures in all these countries are controlled by oppo-
nents of Socialism, it is evident that such measures have been
adopted from other than Socialist motives. In fact they have
no necessary relation to Socialism at all, but, on the contrary,
have been widely enacted for capitalistic reasons without
regard to the demands or power of the workers.

Mr. Berger is reported to have said a few days after this
speech : "The idea will in five years have been incorporated
into law. Both of the old parties within that time will have
incorporated the theory into their platforms. Both the old
parties to-day are approaching Socialistic ideas, and appro-
priating our ideas to save themselves from the coming over-
throw." (18) The idea of governmental old-age pensions,
on the contrary, has always been popular in certain anti-
Socialist circles and is entirely in accord with any intelligent
system of purely capitalistic collectivism. Its common
adoption by progressive capitalists would seem to indicate
that they consider it as being either directly or indirectly
conducive to their own interests. It is unnecessary to assume
that they adopt it from fear of Socialism. Few if any capital-
ists consider the overthrow of capitalism as imminent, or
feel that Socialism is likely for many years to furnish them
with a really acute political problem. A combination of Re-
publicans and Democrats, for example, with a full vote, would
easily overwhelm Mr. Berger, the sole Socialist Congressman

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 205

in his own Congressional district. If present political suc-
cesses continue, it will still take years for Socialism to send a
score of representatives to Congress, and when it does do so,
they will be as impotent as ever to overthrow the capitalist
order.

For any independent representative without political
power or responsibility to propose radical reforms in advance
of the larger parties is a very simple matter. Statesmen with
actual power cannot afford to take up such reforms until the
time is politically ripe for their practical consideration.
When such a measure is passed, for the individual or group
that first proposed it to claim the credit for the change would
be absurd. These reforms, when conditions have suitably
evolved, become the order of the day, and are urged by all
or nearly all the forces of the time. The radical British old-
age pension bill, it will be remembered, was passed almost
unanimously, although in the Parliament that passed it there
were only about 40 Socialist or semi-Socialist representatives
out of a total of 670 members.

What, then, could be more fatuous than such a view as the
following, expressed recently by a well-known Socialist : —

"Do you not think that the whole country should be ap-
prised that this (Berger's Old-age Pension bill) is a Socialist
measure, introduced by a Socialist Representative, and
backed by the Socialist Party — before the Republicans and
Democrats realize the advisability of stealing our thunder.
In England the working-class political movement is stagnant
because the Liberal Party has out-generaled the Socialists
by voluntarily enacting great social reforms." (19)

In his anxiety to prepare a bill that capitalist legislators
would indorse and pass in the near future, Mr. Berger
aroused great criticism within the Party. The New York
Volkszeitung pointed out that in limiting the benefit of the law
to those who had been naturalized citizens of the United
States for sixteen years, he was requiring a residence of
twenty-one years in this country, a provision which involved
an excessively heavy discrimination against a very large
proportion of our foreign-born workers. Mr. Berger's proj-
ect, moreover, demanded that those convicted of felonies
should also be excluded. Socialists, as is well known, have
always asserted that the larger part of crimes and criminals
were due to injustices of the existing social order, for which the
"criminals" were in no sense to blame. Mr. Berger's secre-

206 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

tary, Mr. W. J. Ghent, vigorously defended this clause, on
the typical "State Socialist" ground that the future Society
would deal more severely with criminals than the present
one.

Mr. Berger's bill was objected to by New York Socialists
on the ground that the old parties could be expected to give
a more liberal bill in the near future, and that it would then
be difficult to explain the narrower Socialist position. Mr.
Ghent answered that nowhere had such a liberal measure been
enacted. To this the Volkszeitung remarked that there is
a tremendous difference between a bill that owes its origin
to a capitalist government and one that comes from a Socialist
representative of the working class: "The former sets up a
minimum while the latter must demand the maximum."
Finally, the New York Local of the Socialist Party resolved :
"That we request the National Executive Committee to
resolve that Comrade Berger shall, before introducing any
bill, submit it to secure its approval by the National Execu-
tive Committee."

Mr. Berger's maiden speech also summed up excellently
the general policy of Socialist "reformism."

"When the white man is sick or when he dies," he said,
"the employer usually loses nothing." Mr. Berger does not
understand that, in modern countries, employers as a class
are seeing that the laborers as a class are, after all, their chief
asset : and are therefore organizing to care for them through
governmental action, as working animals, even more sys-
tematically and infinitely more scientifically than slaves were
ever cared for. He is exhausting his efforts to persuade, or
perhaps he would say to compel, the government to the very
action that the interests of its capitalist masters most
strongly demand.

Curiously enough, Mr. Berger expressed the "reformist,"
the revolutionary, and the State capitalist principle in this
same speech, 'without being in the least troubled with the
contradictions. He spoke of industrial crises, irregular
employment and unemployment as if they were permanent
features of capitalism : —

"These new inventions, machines, improvements, and labor de-
vices, displace human labor and steadily increase the army of un-
employed, who, starved and frantic, are ever ready to take the places
of those who have work, thereby still further depressing the labor
market."

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 207

The collectivist capitalists have already set themselves
aggressively to work to abolish unemployment, to make
employment regular, to connect the worker that needs a
job with the job that needs a worker, and to put an end to
industrial crises, and with every promise of success.

Immediately afterward, Mr. Berger made a correct state-
ment of the Socialist position : —

"The average of wages, the certainty of employment, the social
privileges, and the independence of the wage-earning and agricultural
population, when compared with the increase of wealth and social pro-
duction, are steadily and rapidly decreasing."

The Socialist indictment is not that unemployment, irregu-
larity of employment, or any other social evil is increasing
absolutely, or that it is beyond the reach of capitalist reform ;
but that the share of the constantly increasing total of wealth
and prosperity that goes to the laborers is constantly growing
less.

A few minutes later in the same speech, Mr. Berger in-
dorsed pure "State Socialism." Legislation, he said, that
does not tend to an increased measure of control on the part
of society as a whole is not in line with the trend of economic
evolution and cannot last. This formulates capitalistic
collectivism with absolute distinctness. What it demands
is not a new order, but more order. What it opposes is not
so much the rule of capitalists, as the disorder of capitalism
— which capitalists themselves are effectively remedying.
It is not only our present government that is capitalistic
but our present society, also. Increased control over industry,
over legislation and government, on the part of the present
society as a whole, would be but a step toward the achieve-
ment of State capitalism. The purpose of Socialism is to
overcome and eliminate the power of capitalism whether in
society or in government, and not to establish it more firmly.
Increased control by society as a whole, far from being a
Socialist principle, is not necessarily even radical or pro-
gressive. In fact the most far-seeing conservatives to-day
demand it, for "control by society as a whole" means, for the
present, control by society as it is.

Finally, in reply to questions asked on the floor of Congress
after this same speech, Mr. Berger said : "Any interference
by the government with the rights of private property is
Socialistic in tendency," that is, that every step in collectiv-

208 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ism is a step in Sodalism. Yet this demand for the restric-
tion of the rights of private property by a conservative gov-
ernment is the identical principle advocated by progressives
who will have nothing to do with Socialism. (See Part I,
Chapter III.)

Mr. Berger and the large minority of Socialist Party
members that vote with him in Party Congresses and refer-
endums may be said to represent a combination of trade
unionism of the conservative kind, and "State Socialism,"
together with opportunistic methods more or less in contra-
diction with the usual tactics of the international movement.
These methods and the indiscriminate support of conservative
unionism have been repeatedly rejected by the Socialists
in this country. But very many Socialists who repudiate
all compromise and will have nothing of Australian or British
Labor Party tactics in the United States are in entire accord
with Mr. Berger on "State Socialist" reform. It is thus a
modified form of "State Socialism" and not Laborism that
now confronts the organization and creates its greatest
problem.

Mr. Charles Edward Russell, for example, says that "we
are not striving for ourselves alone, but for our children,
that "our aim is not merely for one country, but for all the
world," that "we stand here immutably resolved against the
whole of capitalism." (20) And Mr. Russell will hear noth-
ing either of compromise or of a Labor Party. But when we
come to examine the only question of practical moment, how
his ideal is to be applied, we are astounded to read that,
"every time a government acquires a railroad, it practices
Socialism." (21)

Mr. Russell points out that "almost all the railroads
in the world, outside of the United States, are now
owned by government," yet in his latest book, "Business,"
he refers to Prussia, Japan, Mexico [under Diaz], and other
countries as having boldly purchased railways and coal mines
when they desired them for the common good. (22) Mr. Rus-
sell here seems to overlook the fact that the history of Russia,
Japan, Mexico, and Prussia has shown that there is an inter-
mediate stage between our status and government "for the
Common Good," a stage during which the capitalist class,
having gained a more firm control over government than ever,
intrusts it (with the opposition of but a few of the largest cap-
italists) with some of the most important business functions.

"REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 209

Yet Mr. Russell himself admits, by implication, that gov-
ernment by Business "properly informed and broadly enlight-
ened" might continue for a considerable period, and there-
fore directs his shafts largely against Business Government
"as at present conducted," and he realizes fully that the most
needed reforms, even when they directly benefit the working-
men, are equally or still more to the benefit of Business : —

"In the first place, if the masses of people become too much im-
poverished, the national stamina is destroyed, which would be ex-
ceedingly bad for Business in case Business should plunge us into war.
In the second place, since poverty produces a steady decline in
physical and mental capacity, if it goes too far, there is a lack of
hands to do the work of Business and a lack of healthy stomachs
to consume some of its most important products.

" For these reasons, a Government for Profits, like ours, incurs
certain deadly perils, unless it be properly informed and broadly
enlightened.

" Something of the truth of this has already been perceived by the
astute gentlemen that steer the fortunes of the Standard Oil Com-
pany, a concern that in many respects may be considered the fore-
most present type of Business in Government. One of the rules of
the Standard Oil Company is to pay good wages to its employees,
and to see that they are comfortable and contented. As a result of
this policy the Standard Oil Company is seldom bothered with strikes,
and most of its workers have no connection with labor unions, do not
listen to muck-rakers and other vile breeders of social discontent,
and are quite satisfied with their little round of duties and their
secure prospects in life. . . .

" Unless Business recognizes quite fully the wisdom of similar ar-
rangements for its employees, Business Government (as at present
conducted) will in the end fall of its own weight." (23) (My italics.)

Surely nobody has given more convincing arguments than
Mr. Russell himself why Business Government should go in
for government ownership and measures to increase the effi-
ciency of labor. Surely no further reasons should be needed
to prove that when a government purchases a railroad to-
day, it does not practice Socialism. Yet the reverse is sus-
tained by a growing number of members of the Socialist
Party (though not by a growing proportion of the Party),
which indicates that the Socialism of Bebel, Liebknecht,
Kautsky, Guesde, Lafargue, and the International Socialist
Congresses is at present by no means as firmly rooted in
this country as it is on the Continent of Europe.

CHAPTER V
REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION

AN American Socialist author expresses the opinion of
many Socialists when he says of the movement : " It strives
by all efforts in its power to increase its vote at the ballot
box. It believes that by this increase the attainment of its
goal is brought ever nearer, and also that the menace of this
increasing vote induces the capitalist class to grant concessions
in the hope of preventing further increases. It criticizes non-
Socialist efforts at reform as comparatively barren of positive
benefit and as tending, on the whole, to insure the dominance
of the capitalist class and to continue the grave social evils
now prevalent." (1) (My italics.)

Because non-Socialist reforms tend to prolong the domina-
tion of the capitalist class, which no Socialist doubts, it is
asserted that they are also comparatively barren of positive
benefit. And if, from time to time and in contradiction
to this view, changes are bought about by non-Socialist gov-
ernments which undeniably do very much improve the condi-
tion of the working people, it is reasoned that this was done
by the menace either of a Socialist revolution or of a Socialist
electoral majority.

"A Socialist reform must be in the nature of a working-class
conquest," says Mr. Hillquit in his "Socialism in Theory
and Practice" — expressing this very widespread Socialist
opinion. He says that reforms inaugurated by small farmers,
manufacturers, or traders, cause an "arrest of development
or even a return to conditions of past ages, while the reforms
of the more educated classes if less reactionary are not of a
more efficient type."

"The task of developing and extending factory legislation
falls entirely on the organized workmen," according to this
view, because the dominant classes have no interest in devel-
oping it, while the evils of the slums and of the employment
of women and children in industry can be cured only by
Socialism. Such reforms as can be obtained in this direction,

210

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 211

though they are not considered by Mr. Hillquit "as the begin-
nings or installments of a Socialist system, " he holds are to
be obtained only with Socialist aid. In other words, while
capitalism is not altogether unable or unwilling to benefit the
working people, it can do little, and even this little is due
to the presence of the Socialists.

Another example of the "reformist's" view may be seen
in the editorials of Mr. Berger, in the Social-Democratic
Herald, of Milwaukee, where he says that the Social-Demo-
crats never fail to declare that with all the social reforms, good
and worthy of support as they may be, conditions cannot
be permanently improved. That is to say, present-day reforms
are not only of secondary importance, but that they are of
merely temporary effect.

"There is nothing more to hope from the property-holding
classes."

"The bourgeois reformers are constantly getting less
progressive and allying themselves more and more with the
reactionaries."

"It is impossible that the capitalists should accomplish
any important reform."

"With all social reform, short of Socialism itself, condi-
tions cannot be permanently improved."

These and many similar expressions are either quotations
from well-known Socialist authors or phrases in common use.
Many French and German Socialists have even called the
whole "State Socialist" program "social-demagogy." As
none of the reforms proposed by the capitalists are sufficient
to balance the counteracting forces and to carry society
along their direction, Socialists sometimes mistakenly feel that
nothing whatever of benefit can come to the workers from cap-
italist government. As the capitalists' reforms all tend "to
insure the dominance of the capitalist class," it is denied
that they can cure any of the grave social evils now prevalent,
and it is even asserted that they are reactionary.

"For how many years have we been telling the working-
man, especially the trade unionist," wrote the late Benjamin
Hanford, on two successive occasions Socialist candidate for
Vice President of the United States "that it was folly for him
to beg in the halls of a capitalist legislature and a capitalist
Congress? Did we mean what we said? I did, for one.
... I not only believed it — I proved it." Obviously
there are many political measures, just as there are many im-

212 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

provements in industry and industrial organization, that may
be beneficial to the workers as well as the capitalists, but it
is also clear that such changes will in most instances be
brought about by the capitalists themselves. On the other
hand, even where they have a group of independent legislators
of their own, however large a minority it may form, the
Socialists can expect no concessions of political or economic
power until social revolution is at hand.

The municipal platform adopted by the Socialist Party
in New York City in 1909 also appealed to workingmen not
to be deluded into the belief "that the capitalists will permit
any measures of real benefit to the working class to be carried
into effect by the municipality so long as they remain in undis-
puted control of the State and federal government and
especially of the judiciary." This statement is slightly
inaccurate. The capitalists will allow the enactment of
measures that benefit the working class, provided those meas-
ures do not involve loss to the capitalist class. Thus sanita-
tion and education are of real benefit to the workers, but,
temporarily at least, they benefit the capitalist class still
more, by rendering the workers more efficient as wealth pro-
ducers.

The Socialist platforms of the various countries all recog-
nize, to use the language of that of the United States, that all
the reforms indorsed by the Socialists "are but a prepara-
tion of the workers to seize the whole power of government, in
order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system
of industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance."
(Italics are mine.) This might be interpreted to mean that
through such reforms the Socialists are gaining control over
parts of industry and government. Marx took the opposite
view; "the first step in the revolution by the working class is
to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling power. . . ."
He left open no possibility of saying that the Socialists
thought that without overthrowing capitalism they could
seize a part of the powers of government (though they
were already electing legislative minorities and subordinate
officials in his day).

Sometimes there are still more ambiguous expressions in
Socialist platforms which even make it possible for social
reformers who have joined the movement to confess publicly
that they use it exclusively for reform purposes, and still
to claim that they are Socialists (see Professor Clark's ad-

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 213

vice in the following chapter). For example, instead of
heading such proposals as the nationalization of the rail-
roads and "trusts" and the State appropriation of ground
rent "reforms indorsed by Socialists," they have called such
reforms, perhaps inadvertently, "Immediate Demands"
and the American platform has referred to them as measures
of relief which "we may be able to force from capitalism."
There can be no doubt that Marx and his chief followers,
on the contrary, saw that such reforms would come from the
capitalists without the necessity of any Socialist force or
demand — though this pressure might hasten their coming
(see Part I, Chapter VIII). They are viewed by him and an
increasing number of Socialists not as concessions to Socialism
forced from the capitalists, but as developments of capitalism
desired by the more progressive capitalists and Socialists alike,
but especially by the Socialists owing to their desire that State
capitalism shall develop as rapidly as possible — as a pre-
liminary to Socialism, — and to the fact that the working
people suffer more than the capitalists at any delay in the
establishment even of this transitional state.

The platform of the American Party just quoted classes
such reforms as government relief for the unemployed, gov-
ernment loans for public work, and collective ownership of
the railways and trusts, as measures it may be able "to force
from capitalism," as "a preparation of the workers to seize
the whole power of government." But if the capitalists
do enact such reforms as these, not on the independent
grounds I have indicated, but out of fear of Socialism, as is
here predicted, why should not the process of coercing capital-
ism continue indefinitely until gradually all power is taken
away from them ? Why should there be any special need to
"seize" the whole power, if the capitalists can be coerced
even now, while the government is still largely theirs ?

Some "reformists" do not hesitate to answer frankly that
there is indeed no ground for expecting any revolutionary
crisis. Mr. John Spargo feels that reforms "will prove in
their totality to be the Revolution itself," and that if the
Socialists keep in sight this whole body of reforms, which he
calls the Revolution, "as the objective of every Reform," this
will sufficiently distinguish them from non-Socialist reformers.
Mr. Morris Hillquit also speaks for many other influential
Socialists when he insists that the Socialists differ from other
Parties chiefly in that they alone "see the clear connection

214 SOCIALISM AS IT IS'

and necessary interdependence" between the various social
evils. That there is no ground for any such assertion is
shown by the fact that the social evils discussed in the capital-
ist press, and all the remedies which have any practical
chance of enactment, as is now generally perceived, are due
to extreme poverty, the lack of order in industry, and the need
of government regulations, guided by a desire to promote
"efficiency," and to perfect the capitalist system. Non-
Socialist reformers have already made long strides toward
improving the worst forms of poverty, without taking the
slightest step towards social democracy. These reforms
are being introduced more and more rapidly and are not
likely to be checked until what we now know as poverty and
its accompanying evils are practically abolished by the capital-
ist class while promoting their own comfort and security. This,
for example, is, as I have shown, the outspoken purpose of
Mr. Lloyd George and his capitalistic supporters in England.
Similarly, it is the outspoken purpose of the promoters of
the present "efficiency" movement among the business men
of America. However the material conditions of the work-
ing classes may be bettered by such means, their personal
liberty and political power may be so much curtailed in
the process as to make further progress by their own associ-
ated efforts more difficult under "State Socialism" than
it is to-day.

The State platform of the Socialist Party of New York in
1910, while seemingly self-contradictory in certain of its
phrases, makes the sharpest distinctions between Socialism
and "State Socialist" reform. Its criticism of reform parties
is on the whole so vigorous and its insistence on class struggle
tactics so strong as to make it clear that there is no expecta-
tion of reaching Socialism through reforms granted, from
whatever motive, by a non-Socialist majority. I have
italicized some significant phrases : —

"The two dominant political parties pretend to stand for all the
people; the so-called reform parties claim to speak for the good
people ; the Socialist party frankly acknowledges that it is concerned
chiefly with the working people. . . .

"The great fortunes of the wealthy come from the spoliation of
the poor. Large profits for the manufacturers mean starvation
wages for the workers ; the princely revenues of the landlords are
derived from excessive rents of the tenants, and the billions of watered
stock and bonds crying for dividends and interest are a perpetual

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 215

mortgage upon the work and lives of the people of all generations
to come. . . .

"No political party can honestly serve all the people of the state —
those who prey and those who toil ; those who rob and those who are
robbed. The parties as well as the voters of this state must take their
stand in the conflict of interests of the different classes of society —
they must choose between the workers and their despoilers.

"The Republican and Democratic Parties alike always have been
the tools of the dominating classes. They have been managed, sup-
ported, and financed by the money powers of the State, and in turn
they have conducted the legislatures, courts, and executive offices
of the State as accessories to the business interests of those classes.

"These vices of our government are not accidental, but are deeply
and firmly rooted in our industrial system. To maintain its su-
premacy in this conflict the dominating class must strive to control
our government and politics, and must influence and corrupt our
public officials.

"The two old parties as well as the so-called reform parties of the
middle classes, which spring up in New York politics from time to
time, all stand for the continuance of that system, hence they are
bound to perpetuate and to aggravate its inevitable evils. . . ."

The New York Party had immediately before it the ex-
ample of Mr. Hearst, who has gone as far as the radicals of
the old parties in Wisconsin, or Kansas, Oklahoma, California,
or Oregon in verbally indorsing radical reform measures,
and also of Mr. Roosevelt, who occasionally has gone almost
as far. Day after day the Hearst papers had sent out to
their millions of readers editorials which contain every ele-
ment of Socialism except its essence, the class struggle.
The New York Party, like many in other Socialist organiza-
tions, found itself compelled by circumstances to take a revolu-
tionary stand.

For when opportunistic reformers opposed to the Socialist
movement go as far as the Hearst papers in indorsing "State
Socialist" reforms, what hope would there be for Socialists
to gain the public ear if they went scarcely farther, either as
regards the practical measures they propose or the phrases
they employ? If the "reformist" Socialists answer that
their ultimate aim is to go farther, may they not be asked
what difference this makes in present-day affairs? And if
they answer that certain reforms must be forced through by
Socialist threats, political or revolutionary, will they not be
told, first that it can be shown that the whole "State Social-
istic " reform program, if costly to many individual capitalists,

216 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

promises to prove ultimately profitable to the capitalist class,
and second, that it is being carried out where there is no
present menace either of a Socialist revolution or even of a
more or less Socialistic political majority.

But the position of the politically ambitious among so-
called "orthodox" Socialists (I do not refer to personal or
individual, but only to partisan ambition) is often very similar
at the bottom to that of the "reformists"; while the latter
contend that capitalism can grant few if any reforms of any
great benefit to the working people without Socialist aid, some
of the orthodox lay equal weight on Socialist agitation for
these same reforms, on the ground that they cannot be
accomplished by collaborating with capitalist reformers at
all, but solely through the Socialist Party.

"The revolutionary Marxists," says the French Socialist,
Rappaport, " test the gifts of capitalistic reform through its
motives. And they discover that these motives are not
crystal clear. The reformistic patchwork is meant to prop
up and make firmer the rotten capitalistic building. They
test capitalistic reforms, moreover, by the means which are
necessary for their accomplishment. These means are either
altogether lacking or insufficient, and in any case they flow
in overwhelming proportion out of the pockets of the ex-
ploited classes." (2)

We need not agree with Rappaport that capitalistic re-
forms bring no possible benefit to labor, or that the capital-
istic building is rotten and about to fall to pieces. May it
not be that it is strong and getting stronger? May it not
be that the control over the whole building, far from passing
into Socialist hands, is removed farther and farther from their
reach, so that the promise of obtaining, not reforms of more
or less importance, but a fair and satisfactory share of progress
without conquering capitalism is growing less ?

Thus many orthodox and revolutionary Socialists even,
to say nothing of "reformists," become mere political parti-
sans, make almost instinctive efforts to credit all political
progress to the Socialist Parties, contradict their own revo-
lutionary principles. All reforms that happen to be of any
benefit to labor, they claim, are due to the pressure of the
working classes within Parliaments or outside of them ; which
amounts to conceding that the Socialists are already sharing
in the power of government or industry, a proposition that
the revolutionaries always most strenuously deny. For if

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 217

Socialists are practically sharing in government and industry
to-day, the orthodox and revolutionists will have difficulty
in meeting the argument of the "reformists" that it is only
necessary to continue the present pressure in order to obtain
more and more, without any serious conflicts, until all Social-
ism is gradually accomplished.

Kautsky makes much of the capitalists' present fear of
the working classes, though in his opinion this fear makes
not only for "concessions" but also for reactions, as in the
world-wide revival of imperialism. Foreign conquests, he
believes, are the only alternative the governing classes are
able to offer to the glowing promises of the Socialists. It is
for this reason, he believes, that the capitalists are relying
more and more on imperialism, even though they know
that the conquest of colonies is no longer possible to the extent
it was before, and realize that the cost of maintaining arma-
ments is rapidly becoming greater than colonial profits.
But this also is to underestimate the resources of capitalism
and its capacity for a certain form of progress. If the capital-
ists are not to be forced to concessions, neither are they to
be forced, unless in a very great crisis, to reactionary meas-
ures that in themselves bring no profit. The progressive
"State Socialist" program is, as a rule, a far more promising
road to popularity from their standpoint than is reactionary
imperialism.

In Kautsky's view the bourgeoisie is driven by the fear
of Socialism, in a country like Germany to reaction, and in
one like England to attempt reform. In neither case will it
actually proceed to reforms of any considerable benefit to
labor, apparently because Kautsky believes that all such
reforms would inevitably strengthen labor relatively to cap-
ital, and will therefore not be allowed. Similarly, he feels
that the capitalists will refuse all concessions to political
democracy (on the same erroneous supposition, that they will
inevitably aid labor more than capital).

For example, the British Liberals have abolished the veto
of the House of Lords, but only to increase the power of
other capitalists against landowners, while the Conservatives
have proposed the Referendum, but only to protect the Lords.
From 1884 to 1911 neither Party had introduced any meas-
ure to democratize the House of Commons and so to in-
crease the representation of labor. Kautsky reminds us
of the plural voting, unequal electoral districts, and absence

218 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of primary and secondary elections. This he believes is
evidence that the capitalists fear to extend political democ-
racy farther. They even fear the purely economic reforms
that are being enacted, he claims, and at every concession
made to labor desert the Liberals to join the Conservatives.
Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being
carried out, however. But when it comes to such matters
as an extended suffrage, the capitalists will balk. His con-
clusion is that if economic reforms are to continue, if, for
example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the govern-
ment, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites
have to free themselves from the tutelage of the Liberal Party.
And if they do this, they can play so effectively on capitalist
fears as to force an extension of the suffrage and even change
the British Parliament into a "tool for the dictatorship of
the working class." As in Germany, all political advance
of value to labor must be obtained through playing on capital-
ist fears — only in England the process may be more gradual
and results easier to obtain.

"Every extension of the suffrage to the working class must
be fought for to-day," says Kautsky, "and it is only thanks
to the fear of the working class that it is not abolished where
it exists." By a strange coincidence Kautsky renewed the
prediction that the capitalistic Radical government of Eng-
land would never extend the ballot except when forced by
Labor only a few days before Prime Minister Asquith offi-
cially, without any special pressure from Labor, pledged
it to equal and universal (manhood) suffrage. The passage
follows : —

"In England the suffrage is still limited to-day, and capitalistic
Radicalism, in spite of its fine phrases, has no idea of enlarging it.
The poorest part of the population is excluded from the ballot.
In all Great Britain (in 1906) only 16.64 per cent possessed, against
22 per cent in Germany. If England had the German Reichstag
suffrage law, 9,600,000 would be enfranchised, instead of 7,300,000,
i.e. 2,300,000 more." (3)

Kautsky's view that capitalists cannot bend a more or less
democratic government to their purposes and therefore will
not institute such a government, unless forced to do so, is
undoubtedly based on German conditions. He contends that
the hope of the German bourgeois lies not in democracy nor
even in the Reichstag, but in the strength of Prussia, which

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 219

spells Absolutism and Militarism. He admits in one passage
that conditions may be different in the United States, Eng-
land, and British colonies, and under certain circumstances in
France, but for the peoples of eastern Europe advanced
measures of democracy such as direct legislation belong to
"the future State," while no reforms of importance to the
workers are to be secured to-day except through the menace
of revolution. It would be perfectly consistent with this,
doubtlessly correct, view of present German conditions, if
Kautsky said that after Germany has overthrown Absolutism
and Militarism, progressive capitalism may be expected to
conquer reactionary capitalism in Germany as elsewhere, and
to use direct legislation and other democratic measures for
the purpose of increasing profits, with certain secondary, inci-
dental and lesser (but by no means unimportant) benefits to
labor. But this he refuses to do. He readily admits that
Germany is backward politically, but as she is advanced
economically he apparently allows his view of other countries
to-day and of the Germany of the future to be guided by the
fact that the large capitalists now in control in that country
(with military and landlord aid) oppose even that degree of
democracy and those labor reforms which, as I have shown,
would result in an increased product for the capitalist class
as a whole (though not of all capitalists). For he pictures
the reactionary capitalists in continuous control in the future
both in Germany and other countries, and the smaller capi-
talists as important between these and the masses of wage
earners. The example of other countries (equally developed
economically and more advanced than Germany politically)
suggests, on the contrary, a growing unity of large and small
capital through the action of the state — and as a result the
more or less progressive policy I have outlined. (See Part I.)
But Kautsky's view is that of a very large number of So-
cialists, especially in Germany and neighboring countries, is
having an enormous influence, and deserves careful consider-
ation. The proletariat, he says, is not afraid of the most
extreme revolutionary efforts and sacrifices to win equal suf-
frage where, as in Germany, it is withheld. " And every at-
tempt to take away or limit the German laborer's right of
voting for the Reichstag would call forth the danger of a
fearful catastrophe to the Empire." (5) It is here and else-
where suggested, on the basis of German experience, that this
struggle over the ballot is a struggle between Capital and Labor.

220 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The German Reichstag suffrage was made equal by Bismarck
in 1870 for purely capitalistic reasons, and the number of voters
in England was doubled as late as 1884, and the suffrage is
now to be made universal through similar motives. Yet the
present domination of the German Liberals and those of
neighboring countries by a reactionary bureaucratic, military,
and landlord class, persuades Kautsky that genuine capital-
istic Liberalism everywhere is at an end.

Yet in 1910 the German Radicals succeeded, after many
years of vain effort, in forming out of their three parties a
united organization, the Progressive Peoples Party (Fortschritt-
liche Volkspartei). The program adopted included almost
every progressive reform, and, acting in accordance with its
principles, this Party quite as frequently cooperates with the
Socialists on its left as with the National Liberals immediately
on its right. The whole recent history of the more advanced
countries, including even Italy, would indicate that the small
capitalist element, which largely composes this party, will
obtain the balance of power and either through the new party
or through the Socialist " reformists " (the latter either in or
out of the parent organization) — or through both together —
will before many years bring about the extension of the suf-
frage in Prussia (though not its equalization), the equalization
of the Reichstag electoral districts, and the reduction of the
tariff that supports the agrarian landlords and large capital-
ists, put a halt to some of the excesses of military extrava-
gance (though not to militarism), institute a government
responsible to the Reichstag, provide government employ-
ment for the unemployed, and later take up the other indus-
trial and labor reforms of capitalist collectivism as inaugu-
rated in other countries, together with a large part also of the
radical democratic program. There is no reason for suppos-
ing that the evolution of capitalism is or will be basically
different in Germany from that of other countries. (See
Chapter VII.)

Though he regards Socialism as the sole impelling force
for reforms of benefit to labor, Kautsky definitely acknowl-
edges that no reforms that are immediately practicable can
be regarded as the exclusive property of the Socialist Party : —

"But this is certain," he says, "there is scarcely a single practical
demand for present-day legislation, that is peculiar to any particular
party. Even the Social Democracy scarcely shows one such demand.

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 221

That through which it differentiates itself from other parties is the
totality of its practical demands and the goals towards which it
points. The eight-hour law, for example, is no revolutionary
demand. ...

"What holds together political parties, especially when like the
Social Democrats they have great historic tasks to accomplish, are
their final goals; not their momentary demands, not their views
as to the attitude to be assumed on all the separate questions that
come before the party.

"Differences of opinion are always present within the Party and
sometimes reach a threatening height. But they will be the less
likely to break up the Party, the livelier the consciousness in its
members of the great goals towards which they strive in common,
the more powerful the enthusiasm for these goals, so that demands
and interests of the moment are behind them in importance." (5)

The only way to differentiate the Socialists from other
parties, the only thing Socialists have in common with one
another is, according to this view, not agreement as to prac-
tical action, but certain ideals or goals. Socialists may want
the same things as non-Socialists, and reject the things de-
sired by other Socialists, and their actions may follow their
desires, but all is well, and harmony may reign as long as
their hearts and minds are filled with a Socialist ideal. But
if a goal thus has no necessary connection with immediate
problems or actions, is it necessarily anything more than a
sentiment or an abstraction ?

Kautsky's toleration of reform activities thus has an op-
posite origin to that of the "reformist" Socialists. He tolerates
concentration on capitalistic measures by factions within
the Socialist Party, on the ground that such measures are
altogether of secondary importance; they insist on these
reforms as the most valuable activities Socialists can under-
take at the present time.

Kautsky and his associates will often tolerate activities that
serve only to weaken the movement, provided verbal recog-
nition is given to the Socialist ideal. This has led to profound
contradictions in the German movement. At the Leipzig
Congress, for example (1909), the reformists voted unani-
mously for the reafnrmation of the revolutionary "Dresden
resolution" of 1903, with the explanation that they regarded
it in the very opposite sense from what its words plainly
stated. They had fought this resolution at the time it was
passed, and condemned it since, and had continued the
actions against which it was directed. But their vote in

222 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

favor of it and explanation that they refused to give it any
practical bearing had to be accepted at Leipzig without a
murmur. Such is the result of preaching loyalty to phrases,
goals, or ideals rather than in action. The reformists
can often, though not always, escape responsibility for their
acts by claiming loyalty to the goal — often, no doubt, in all
sincerity; for goals, ideals, doctrines, and sentiments, like
the human conscience, are generally highly flexible and subtle
things.

Kautsky's policy of ideal revolutionism, combined with
practical toleration of activities given over exclusively to non-
Socialist reform, which is so widespread in the German move-
ment under the form of a too rigid separation between theory
on the one hand and tactics on the other, agrees at another
point with the policy of the reformists. The latter, as I
have mentioned, seek to justify their absorption in reforms
that the capitalists also favor, by claiming that they deter-
mine their attitude to a reform by its relation to a larger
program, whereas the capitalists do not. Kautsky similarly
differentiates the Socialists by the totality of their demands ;
the individual reform, being, as he concedes, usually if not
always supported by other parties also. Yet it is difficult
to see how a program composed wholly of non-Socialist ele-
ments could in any combination become distinctly Socialist.
A Socialist program of immediate demands may be peculiar to
some Socialist political group at a given moment, but usually
it contains no features that would prevent a purely capitalist
party taking it up spontaneously, in the interest of capital-
ism.

What is it that drives Kautsky into the position that I
have described? To this question we can find a definite
answer, and it leads us into the center of the seeming mysteries
of Socialist policy. The preservation of the Socialist Party
organization, with its heterogeneous constituent elements,
is held to be all-important; and this party organization
cannot be kept intact, and all its present supporters retained,
without a program of practical reforms that may be secured
with a little effort from capitalist governments. In order
to claim this program as distinctively theirs, Socialists must
differentiate it in some way from other reform programs. As
there is no practical difference, they must insist that the ideal
is not the same, that Socialists are using the reforms for dif-
ferent purposes, that only part of their program is like that

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 223

of any one capitalist party, while in other parts it resembles
those of other capitalist parties, etc.

That "party necessity" can drive even radical and influ-
ential Socialists into such a position may seem incredible.
But when it is understood that loyalty to party also conflicts
with loyalty to principle in many cases even to the point
of driving many otherwise revolutionary Socialists to the very
opposite extreme, i.e. to fighting against progressive capitalist
reforms purely for party reasons, this willingness to allow
the Socialist organization to claim such reforms asjn some
sense its own, will appear as the lesser deviation from prin-
ciple.

For example, Kautsky opposes direct legislation — with
the proviso that perhaps it may have a certain value in English-
speaking countries and under some circumstances in France.
His arguments in spite of this proviso are directed almost
wholly against it, on the ground that direct legislation would
take many reforms out of the hands of the Party, would
cause them to be discussed independently of one another
instead of bound together as if they were inseparable parts
of a program and would weaken the Party in direct propor-
tion as its use was extended. (6)

Yet Kautsky himself contends, in the same work in which
this passage occurs, that Socialists favor all measures of
democracy, even when the movement at first loses by their
introduction. In a word he holds that the function of
promoting immediately practicable political reforms is so
important to the Party, and the Party with its present organ-
ization, membership and activities, is so important to the
movement, that even the most fundamental principle may, on
occasion, be disregarded. Democracy is admitted to be a
principle so inviolable that it is to be upheld generally even
when the Party temporarily loses by it. Yet because direct
legislation might rob the Socialists of all opportunity for
claiming the credit for non-Socialist reforms, because it would
put to a direct vote a program composed wholly of elements
held in common with other parties, and differing only in its
combination of these elements, because the Party tactics
would have to be completely transformed and the Party
temporarily weakened by being forced to limit itself entirely
to revolutionary efforts, Kautsky turns against this keystone
of democratic reform.

"There is indeed no legislation without compromises,"

224 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

he writes; "the great masses who are not experienced political
leaders, must be much easier confused and misled than the
political leaders. If compromise in voting on bills were really
corrupting, then it would work much more harm through direct
popular legislation than through legislation by Parliament,
... for that would mean nothing less than to drive the
cause of corruption from Parliament, out among the people."

"Direct legislation," he continues, "has the tendency
to divert attention from general principles and to concentrate
it on concrete questions." (7) But if the Socialists cannot
educate the masses to know what they want concretely,
how much less will they understand general principles ? If
they cannot judge such concrete and separate questions, how
will they control Socialist officials who, as it is now, so often
build their programs and decide their tactics for them ?
There is no mechanical substitute for self-government within
Socialist organizations or elsewhere. Direct legislation will
do much to destroy all artificial situations and place society
on the solid basis of the knowledge or ignorance, the division
or organization, the weakness or strength of character
of the masses. The present situation, however useful
for well-intentioned Socialist "leaders, " is even better adapted
to the machinations of capitalist politicians. And because
it militates against the politically powerful small capitalists
as well as against the non-capitalists, it is doomed to an early
end.

Kautsky, in a word, actually fears that the present capitalist
society will carry out, one by one, its own reforms. For
the same reason that he denies the ability or willingness of
capitalism to make any considerable improvements in the
material conditions of labor, except as compelled by the
superior force (or the fear of the superior force) of Socialism,
he would, if possible, prevent the capitalists from introducing
certain democratic improvements that would facilitate re-
forms independently of the Socialist Party. However, the
economic and political evolution of capitalism will doubtless
continue to take its course, and through improved democratic
methods all Socialist arguments based on the impossibility
of any large measure of working-class progress under capital-
ism, and all efforts to credit what is being done to the advance
of Socialism, will be seen to have been futile. The contention
between Socialists and capitalists will then be reduced to its
essential elements : —

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 225

Is progress under capitalism as great as it might be under
Socialism ?

Is capitalist progress making toward Socialism by improv-
ing the position of the non-capitalists when compared with
that of the capitalists, or is it having the opposite effect ?

Even the "syndicalists," little interested as they are in
reform, seem to fear, as Kautsky does, that so long as con-
siderable changes for the better are possible, progress towards
Socialism, which in their case also implies revolution, is impos-
sible. I have shown that Lagardelle denies that Labor and
Capital have any interest whatever in common. Similarly,
a less partisan writer, Paul Louis, author of the leading work
on French unionism ("Histoire du Movement Syndicale en
France"), while he notes every evil of the coming State
Socialism, yet ignores its beneficent features, and bases his
whole defense of revolutionary labor unionism on the propo-
sition that important reforms, even if aided by friendly
Socialist cooperation or hostile Socialist threats, can no
longer be brought about under capitalism : —

"The Parliamentary method was suited by its principle to the
reform era. Direct action corresponds to the syndicalist era.
Nothing is more simple.

"As long as organized labor believes in the possibility of amend-
ing present society by a series of measures built up one upon the
other, it makes use of the means that the present system offers it.
It proceeds through intervening elected persons. It imagines that
from a theoretical discussion there will arise such ameliorations
that its vassalage will be gradually abolished."

The belief here appears that a steady, continuous, and
marked improvement in the position of the working class
would necessarily lead to its overtaking automatically the
rapidly increasing power of capitalism. If this were so, it
would indeed be true, as Louis contends, that no revolutionary
movement could begin, except when all beneficial labor re-
forms and other working-class progress had ended.

I shall quote (Part III, Chapter V) a passage where Louis
indicates that syndicalism, like Socialism itself, is directed
in the most fundamental way against all existing govern-
ments. He takes the further step of saying that existing
governments can do nothing whatever for the benefit of
labor, and that their sole function is that of repression : —

"The State, which has taken for its mission — and no other could
be conceived — the defense of existing society, could not allow its
Q

226 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

power of command to be attacked. The social hierarchy which
itself rests upon the economic subordination of one class to another,
will be maintained only so long as the governmental power shatters
every assault victoriously, represses every initiative, punishes with-
out mercy all innovators and all factious persons. . . .

"In the new order [syndicalism] there is no room for any capital-
istic attribute, even reduced to its most simple expression. There
is no longer room for a political system for safeguarding privileges
and conquering rebels. If our definition of the State is accepted,
that it is an organ of defense, always more and more exacting be-
cause it is in a society always more and more menaced, it will be
understood that such a State is condemned to disappear with that
society. . . .

"The State crushes the individual, and syndicalism appeals to all
the latent energies of that individual, the State suspects and throttles
organizations, and syndicalism multiplies them against it. ...
All institutions created by the State for the defense of the capitalist
system are assailed, undermined by syndicalism." (8)

Here is a view of the State as far opposed as possible to
that of Kautsky, who says truly that it is "a monster eco-
nomic establishment, and its influence on the whole eco-
nomic life of a nation to-day is already beyond the power of
measurement." (9) For Kautsky, the State is primarily
economic and constructive; for Louis it is purely political
and repressive. Yet Kautsky, like Louis, seems to feel that
if the State were capable of carrying out reforms of any impor-
tance to the wage earners, or if it were admitted that it
could do so, it would be impossible to persuade the workers
that a revolution is necessary and feasible. And so both
deny that "State Socialism," which they recognize as an
intervening stage between the capitalism of to-day and Social-
ism, is destined to give better material conditions, if less
liberty, than the present society. Both the economic and po-
litical revolutionists are, on such grounds, often tempted to
agree with the reformists of the party and of the labor
unions, in leveling their guns exclusively against the private
capitalism of to-day — I might almost say the capitalism
of the past — instead of concentrating their attack on the
evils that will remain undiminished under the State capital-
ism of the future. The reformists do this consistently, for
they see in the constructive side of "State Socialism," not
a mere continuation of capitalism, but a large installment
of Socialism itself, and have nothing more to ask for beyond
a continuation of such reforms. Revolutionary Socialists

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 227

are inconsistent, because they may admit that the conditions
of the working people under "State Socialism" may be far
better than they are to-day, without invalidating their
central position that the greater evils of to-day will remain,
and that there will be no progress towards Socialism, no
matter what reforms are enacted, until the Socialists are
either actually or practically in power.

When the Socialists have become so numerous as to be
on the verge of securing control of the government (by what-
ever means), it is unlikely that the privileged classes will
permit peaceful political or constitutional procedures to
continue and put them completely at the mercy of the
non-privileged. In all probability they will then resort to
military violence under pretext of military necessity (see
Part III, Chapter VIII). // when this time arrives, the
Socialists have not only a large political majority, but also the
physical power to back it up, or seem about to secure this
majority and this power, then indeed, though not before
that time, the capitalists may, possibly, begin to make con-
cessions which involve a weakening of their position in so-
ciety, i.e. which necessitate more and more concessions
until their power is destroyed. The revolutionary reformers,
if we may apply this term to Kautsky and his associates,
are then only somewhat premature in their belief that the
Socialist Party is now, or will very shortly become, a real
menace to capitalism; whereas the political reformers are
under the permanent illusion that capitalism will retreat
before paper ballots.

Moreover, Kautsky and the revolutionary reformers, in
order to make their (physical) menace effective, must con-
tinually teach the people to look forward and prepare to use
all the means in their power for their advance. They are thus
thoroughly in accord with the non-reformist revolutionists
who, however much they may welcome certain capitalist re-
forms, do not agree that they will be very materially
hastened by anything the Socialists can do. The non-
reformist revolutionists assume that Socialists will vote for
every form of progress, including the most thoroughly capi-
talistic, and acknowledge that if they fail in their duty in
this respect, these reforms might be materially retarded. But
they are willing to let the capitalists take the lead in such re-
form work, giving them the whole credit for what benefits it
brings, and placing on their shoulders the whole responsibility

228 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

for its limitations. Their criticism of capitalist reform is
leveled not against what it does, but against what it leaves
undone.

Revolutions in machinery and business organization under
capitalism, with which Socialists certainly have nothing to
do, they regard also as not only important, but of vast sig-
nificance, since it is by their aid alone that Socialism is be-
coming a possibility. And now a new period is coming
in, during which the capitalists, on grounds that have no
connection whatever with Socialism or the Socialist move-
ment, will effect another equally indispensable revolution,
in the organization of labor and business by governmental
means. Revolutionary Socialists are ready to give the
fullest credit to capitalism for what it has done, what it is
doing, and what it is about to do — for, however vast the
changes now in process of execution, they feel that the task
that lies before the Socialists is vaster still. The capitalists,
to take one point by way of illustration, develop such indi-
viduals and such latent powers in every individual, as they
can utilize for increasing the private income of the capital-
ists as a class, or of governments which are wholly or very
largely in their control. The Socialists propose to develop
the latent abilities of all individuals in proportion to their power
to serve the community. The collectivist capitalists will
continue to extend opportunity to more and more members
of the community, but always leaving the numbers of the
privileged undiminished and always providing for all their
children first — admitting only the cream of the masses
to the better positions, and this after all of the ruling classes,
including the most worthless, have been provided for. The
Socialists propose, the moment they secure a majority, to
make opportunity, not more equal, but equal.

Those Socialists, then, who expect that reforms of impor-
tance to wage earners are to be secured to-day exclusively
by the menace either of a political overturn or of a Socialist
revolution, and those who imagine that the Socialist hosts
are going to be strengthened by recruits attracted by the
role Socialists are playing in obtaining such immediate
reforms, make a triple error. They credit Socialism with
a power it has nowhere yet achieved and cannot expect until
a revolutionary period is immediately at hand; that is, they
grossly exaggerate the present powers of the Socialist move-
ment and grossly underestimate the task that lies before it.

REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 229

They are seemingly blind to the possibilities of transformation
and progress that still inhere in capitalism — the increased
unity and power it will gain through "State capitalism, "and
the increased wealth that will come through a beneficent
and scientific policy of producing, through wholesale reforms
and improvements, more efficient and profitable laborers.
They fail to see that the strength of the enemy will lie
henceforth more frequently hi deception than in repression.
But even this is not their most fatal blunder. In attacking
individualistic and reactionary rather than collectivistic
and progressive capitalism, these Socialists are not only
wasting their energies by assaulting a moribund power, but
are training their forces to use weapons and to practice evo-
lutions that will soon be obsolete and useless. They are
doing the work and filling the function of the small capitalists.
The large capitalists organized industry; the small capital-
ists will nationalize it ; in so far at least as it has been or
will have been organized. Socialists gam from both proc-
esses, approve of both, and aid them hi every way within
their power. But their chief function is to overthrow cap-
italism. And as the larger part of this task lies off some
distance in the future, it is the capitalism of the future and
not that of the past with which Socialists are primarily
concerned. Evidently but a few years will elapse before
State capitalism will everywhere dominate. In the mean-
while, to attribute its progress to the menace of the advance
of Socialism, is to abandon the Socialist standpoint just as
completely as do the reformist Socialists in regarding
capitalist-collectivist reforms as installments of Socialism,
to be achieved only with Socialist aid.

For Socialists will be judged by what they are doing rather
than by what they promise to do. If political reformists and
revolutionary reformists are both directing their chief atten-
tion to promoting the reforms of "State Socialism," it will
make little difference whether the first argue that these
beneficial measures are a part of Socialism and a guarantee
of the whole; or the second claim that, though such re-
forms are no part of Socialism, the superiority of the move-
ment is shown chiefly by the fact that they could not have
been brought about except through its efforts. Mankind
will rightly conclude that the things that absorb the chief
Socialist activities are those that are also forming the char-
acter of the movement. In direct proportion as reforming

230 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Socialists spend their energies in doing the same things as
reforming capitalists do, they tend inevitably to become more
and more alike. Only in proportion as Socialists can dif-
ferentiate themselves from non-Socialists in their present
activities will the movement have any distinctive meaning of
its own.

CHAPTER VI
REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS

IN the most famous document of international Socialism,
the "Communist Manifesto" (published by Marx and Engels
in 1847), there is a fulmination against "reactionary Social-
ism," which it will be seen is approximately what we now
call "State Socialism." After describing the Utopian Social-
ism of Fourier, of Saint-Simon and of Owen, the "Manifesto"
says : —

"A second form of Socialism, less systematic but more practical,
tried to disgust the working people with every revolutionary move-
ment, by demonstrating to them that it is not such and such a polit-
ical advantage, but only a transformation of the relations of ma-
terial life and of economic conditions that could profit them.
Let it be noted that by transformation of the material relations of
society this Socialism does not mean the abolition of capitalist re-
lations of production, but only administrative reforms brought out
precisely on the basis of capitalist production, and which conse-
quently do not affect the relation of capital and wage labor, but in
the best case only diminish the expenses and simplify the admin-
istrative labor of a capitalist government. ... In the promotion
of their plans they act always with the consciousness of defending
first of all the interest of the working class. The working class only
exists for them under this aspect of the suffering class.

"But in accordance with the undeveloped state of the class
struggle and their social position, they consider themselves quite
above antagonism. They desire to ameliorate the material con-
dition of life for all the members of society, even the most privileged.
As a consequence, they do not cease to appeal to all society without
distinction, or rather they address themselves by preference to the
reigning class." (1)

Marx points out that the chief aim of these "reactionary
Socialists" was the transformation of the State into a mere
organ for the administration of industry in their interest,
which is precisely what we mean to-day by "State Socialism."

In contrast with this "reactionary Socialism," now prev-
alent in Great Britain and Australia, the Socialist parties
of every country of the European Continent (where such

231

232 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

parties are most developed), without exception are striv-
ing for a social democracy and a government of the non-
privileged and not for a scheme of material benefits bestowed
by an all-powerful capitalist State. Professor Anton Menger,
of the University of Vienna, one of the most acute and sym-
pathetic observers of the movement, remarks correctly that —
"in all countries, at all times, the proletariat [working class]
has rightly thought that the continuous development of its
power is worth more than any economic advantage that can
be granted it." (2)

The late Paul Lafargue, perhaps the leading thinker of
the French Socialist movement, a son-in-law of Karl Marx,
made a declaration at a recent Party Congress which brings
out still more clearly the prevailing Socialist attitude.
Denying that the Socialists are opposed to reforms, he said :
"On the contrary, we demand all reforms, even the most
bourgeois [capitalist] reforms like the income tax and the
purchase of the West [the Western railroad, lately purchased
by the government]. It matters little to us who proposes
reforms, and I may add that the most important of them all
for the working class have not been presented by Socialist
deputies, but by the bourgeois [capitalists]. Free and com-
pulsory education was not proposed by Socialists." That
is to say, Lafargue believed that reforms extremely bene-
ficial to the working class might be enacted without any union
of Socialists with non-Socialists, without the Socialists gain-
ing political power and without their even constituting a
menace to the rule of the anti-Socialist classes. Capitalism
of itself, in its own interest and without any reference to
Socialism or the Socialists, may go very far towards develop-
ing a society which in turn develops an ever growing and
developing working class, though without increasing the
actual political or economic powers of this class when com-
pared with its own.

In Germany especially, Marx's co-workers and successors
developed marked hostility to "State Socialism" from the
moment when it was taken up by Bismarck nearly a generation
ago (1883). August Bebel's hostility to the existing State
goes so far that he predicts that it will expire "with the expira-
tion of the ruling class," (3) while Engels contended that the
very phrase "the Socialist State" was valueless as a slogan
in the present propaganda of Socialism, and scientifically
ineffective. (4)

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 233

Engels had even predicted, as long ago as 1880, that the
coming of monopolies would bring it about that the State,
being "the official representative of capitalistic society,"
would ultimately have to undertake "the protection of pro-
duction," and that this necessity would first be felt in the case
of the railways and the telegraphs. Later events have shown
that his prediction was so correct that even America and
England are approaching the nationalization of their rail-
ways, while the proposal to nationalize monopolies is rapidly
growing in popularity in every country in the world, and
among nearly all social classes.

Engels did not consider that such developments were
necessarily in the direction of Socialism any more than the
nationalization of the railways by the Czar or the Prussian
government. On the contrary, he suggested that it meant
the strengthening of the capitalism.

"The modern State," he wrote in 1880, "no matter what
its form, is essentially a capitalistic machine, the State of the
capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national
capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of produc-
tive forces, the more it actually becomes the national capital-
ist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain
wageworkers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not
done away with. It is rather brought to a head." (5)
Engels did not think that State ownership necessarily meant
Socialism ; but he thought that it might be utilized for the
purposes of Socialism if the working class was sufficiently
numerous, organized, and educated to take charge of the
situation. "State ownership of the productive forces is
not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are
the technical conditions that give the elements of the solu-
tion."

As early as 1892 Karl Kautsky, at the present moment
perhaps the greatest living Socialist editor and economist,
wrote that the system of laissez-faire, for which "State
Socialism" offers itself as a remedy, had long ago lost what-
ever influence it once had on the capitalist class — which was
never very great. If, then, the theory that "that govern-
ment is best which governs least" had been abandoned by
the capitalists themselves, there was no ground why Social-
ists should devote their time to the advocacy of a view ("State
Socialism") that was merely a reaction against an outworn
standpoint. The theory of collectivism, that the functions

234 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of the State ought to be widely extended, had long been popu-
lar among the capitalists themselves.

"It has already been seen," wrote Kautsky, "that economic
and political development has made necessary and inevitable
the taking over of certain economic functions by the State.
... It can by no means be said that every nationalization
of an economic function or of an economic enterprise is a
step towards Socialistic cooperation and that the latter would
grow out of the general nationalization of all economic enter-
prises without making a fundamental change in the nature
of the State." (6) In other words, Kautsky denies that par-
tial nationalization or collectivism is necessarily even a step
towards Socialism, and asserts that it may be a step in the
other direction. The German Socialists acted on this prin-
ciple when they opposed the nationalization of the Reichs-
bank, and it has often guided other Socialist parties.

Kautsky feels that it is often a mistake to transfer the
power over industry, e.g. the ownership of the land, into
the hands of the State as now constituted, since this puts
a tremendous part of the national wealth at the disposal
of capitalist governments, one of whose prime functions is
to prevent the increase of the political and economic power
of the working people. And, although the State employees
would probably receive a somewhat better treatment than
they had while the industry was privately owned, they would
simply form a sort of aristocracy of labor opposed in general
to the interests of the working people.

" Like every State, " says Kautsky, " the modern State is in the first
place a tool for the protection of the general interests of the ruling
classes. It changes its nature in no way if it takes over functions of
general utility which aim at advancing the interests not only of the
ruling classes, but also of those of society as a whole and of the ruling
classes, and on no condition does it take care of these functions in a way
which might threaten the general interests of the ruling classes or their
domination. ... If the present-day State nationalizes certain
industries and functions, it does this, not to put limitations on capi-
talistic exploitation, but to protect and to strengthen the capital-
istic mode of production, or in order itself to take a share in this
exploitation, to increase its income in this way, and to lessen the
payments that the capitalist class must obtain for its own support
in the way of taxes. And as an exploiter, the State has this ad-
vantage over private capitalists : that it has at its disposal to be
used against the exploited not only the economic powers of the
capitalists, but the political force of the State." (My italics.)

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 235

As an illustration of Kautsky's reference to the lessening
of taxes through the profits of government ownership, it
may be pointed out that the German Socialists fear the
further nationalization of industries in Germany on account
of the danger that with this increased income the State
would no longer depend on the annual grants of the Reichstag
and would then be in a position to govern without that body.
The king of Prussia and the Emperor of Germany could
in that event rule the country much as the present Czar rules
Russia.

As a rule, outside of Great Britain, the advocates of the
collectivist program are also aware that their "Socialism"
is not that of the Socialist movement. In an article in
the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. John Martin, for example, indi-
cates the "State Socialist" tendency of present-day reform
measures in America, and at the same time shows that they
are removed as far as possible from that anti-capitalist trend
which is held by most Socialist Party leaders to be the es-
sence of their movement. Mr. Martin points to the irrigation
projects, the conservation of national resources, the railway
policy of the national administration, the expansion of the
Federal government, and the tendency towards compulsory
arbitration since the interference of President Roosevelt
in the coal strike of 1902, as being "Socialistic" and yet in
no sense class movements. They tend towards social recon-
struction and to greater social organization and order; and
there are no "logical halting places," says Mr. Martin, "on
the road to Collectivism." But so far is this movement
from a class movement in Mr. Martin's opinion that its
advance guard consists in part of millionaires like Mr.
Carnegie and Mrs. Sage, "who aim at a social betterment of
both getting and spending of fortunes," while "behind them,
uncommitted to any far-reaching theory, but patriotic and
zealous for an improved society, there are marching philan-
thropists, doctors, lawyers, business men, and legislators, ;
people of distinction." And finally the army is completed by '
millions of common privates "for whose children the better
order will be the greatest boon." (The italicizing is mine.)
The privates apparently figure rather as mere recipients of
public and private benefactions than as active citizens. (7)

Some of the reformers openly advise joining the Socialist
movement with the hope of using it for the purpose of reform
and without aiding it in any way to reach a goal of its own.

236 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Professor John Bates Clark, one of America's most prominent
economists, says of the Socialist Party that it is legitimate
because "it represents the aspirations of a large number of
workingmen" and because "its immediate purposes are
good."

"It has changed the uncompromising policy of opposing all half-
way measures," continues Professor Clark. "It welcomes reforms
and tries to enroll hi its membership as many as possible of the re-
formers. ... In short, the Socialist and the reformer may walk
side by side for a considerable distance without troubling them-
selves about the unlike goals which they hope in the end to reach.
. . . What the reformers will have to do is to take the Socialistic
name, walk behind a somewhat red banner, and be ready to break
ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the
ways." (8)

Professor Clark, it will be seen, has no difficulty in suggest-
ing a "logical halting place on the road to collectivism";
namely, when the Socialists turn from collectivist reforms and
start out towards Socialism.

Anti-Socialists may share the Socialist ideal and even favor
all the reforms that the capitalists can permit to be put into
practice without resigning their power and allowing the over-
throw of capitalism. But Socialists have long since seen a
way to mark off all such idealists and reformers — by pre-
senting Socialism for what it really is, not as an ideal, nor a
program of reform under capitalist direction, but as a method,
and the only practical method, of ending capitalist rule in
industry and government.

When Liebknecht insists on "the extreme importance of
tactics and the necessity of maintaining the party's class
struggle character," he makes "tactics," or the practical
methods of the movement, identical with its basic principle,
"the class struggle." Kautsky does the same thing when
he says that Socialism is, both in theory and practice, a revolu-
tion against capitalism.

"Those who repudiate political revolution as the principal
means of social transformation, or wish to confine the latter
to such measures as have been granted by the ruling class,"
says Kautsky, "are social reformers, no matter how much
their social ideas may antagonize existing forms of society."

The Socialists' wholly practical grounds against "reform-
ism" have been stated by Liebknecht, in his "No Com-

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 237

promise." "This political Socialism, which in fact is only
philanthropic humanitarian radicalism, has retarded the
development of Socialism in France exceedingly," he wrote
in 1899, before Socialist politicians and "reformists" had
come into prominence in other countries than France. "It
has diluted and blurred principles and weakened the Socialist
Party because it brought into it troops upon which no reliance
could be placed at the decisive moment." If, in other words,
Socialism is a movement of non-capitalists against capitalists,
nothing could be more fatal to it than a reputation due chiefly
to success in bringing about reforms about which there is
nothing distinctively Socialistic. For this kind of success
could not fail ultimately to swamp the movement with re-
formers who, like Professor Clark, are not Socialists and never
will be.

It must not be inferred from this that Socialists are indif-
ferent to reform. They are necessarily far more anxious
about it than its capitalist promoters. For while many
"State Socialist" reforms are profitable to capitalism and
even strengthen temporarily its hold on society, they are
in the long run indispensable to Socialism. But this does
not mean that Socialism is compelled to turn aside any of
its energies from its great task of organizing and educating
the workers, in order to hasten these reforms. On the con-
trary, the larger and the more revolutionary the Socialist
army, the easier it will be for the progressive capitalists to
overcome the conservatives and reactionaries. Long before
this army has become large enough or aggressive enough to
menace capitalism and so to throw all capitalists together
in a single organization wholly devoted to defensive measures,
there will be a long period — already begun in Great Britain,
France, and other countries — when the growth of Socialism
will make the progressive capitalists supreme by giving them
the balance of power. In order, then, to hasten and aid the
capitalistic form of progress, Socialists need only see that
their own growth is sufficiently rapid. As the Socialists are
always ready to support every measure of capitalist reform,
the capitalist progressives need only then secure enough
strength in Parliaments so that their votes added to those
of the Socialists would form a majority. As soon as pro-
gressive capitalism is at all developed, reforms are thus auto-
matically aided by the Socialist vote, without the necessity
of active Socialist participation — thus leaving the Socialists

238 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

free to attend to matters that depend wholly on their own
efforts; namely, the organization and education of the non-
capitalist masses for aggressive measures leading towards
the overthrow of capitalism.

Opposition to the policy of absorption in ordinary reform
movements is general in the international movement out-
side of Great Britain. Eugene V. Debs, three times presiden-
tial candidate of the American Socialist Party, is as totally
opposed to "reformism" as are any of the Europeans. " The
revolutionary character of our party and of our movement" he
said in a personal letter to the present writer, which was pub-
lished in the Socialist press, "must be preserved in all its
integrity at all cost, for if that be compromised we had better
cease to exist. ... If the trimmers had their way we should
degenerate into bourgeois reformers. . . . But they will not
have their way." (Italics mine.)

No American Socialist has more ably summarized the
dangers opportunism brings to the movement than Professor
George D. Herron in his pamphlet, "From Revolution to
Revolution," taken from a speech made as early as 1903.
Later events, it will be noted, have strikingly verified his
predictions as to the growing popularity of the word "Social-
ism" with nearly all political elements in this country.

"Great initiatives and revolutions," Herron says, "have always
been robbed of definition and issue when adopted by the class against
which the revolt was directed. . . .

" Let Socialists take knowledge and warning. The possessing
class is getting ready to give the people a few more crumbs of what
is theirs. ... If it comes to that, they are ready to give some
things in the name of Socialism. . . . The old political parties will
be adopting what they are pleased to call Socialistic planks in their
platforms; and the churches will be coming with the insipid
'Christian Socialism,' and their hypocrisy and brotherly love. We
shall soon see Mr. Hanna and Bishop Potter, Mr. Hearst and Dr.
Lyman Abbott, even Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan, posing as reason-
able kinds of Socialists. You will find the name of Socialism re-
peatedly taken in vain, and perhaps successfully. You will see the
Socialist movement bridled and saddled by capitalism, in the hope
of riding it to a new lease of capitalistic power. . . .

"But Socialism, like liberty or truth, is something you cannot
have a part of ; you must have the whole or you will have nothing ;
you can only gain or lose the whole, you cannot gain or lose a part.
You may have municipal ownerships, nationalized transportation,
initiative and referendum, civil service reforms and many other

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 239

capitalist concessions, and be all the farther away from Social
Democracy. . . . You may have any kind and number of reforms
you please, any kind and number of revolutions or revivals you
please, any kind and number of new ways of doing good you please,
it will not matter to capitalism, so long as it remains at the root of
things, the result of all your plans and pains will be gathered into
the Capitalist granary." (The italics are mine.)

Yet no Socialist dreams that the presence in the movement
of semi-Socialist or non-Socialist elements, which is both the
cause and the effect of reformism and compromise, is a
mere accident, or that there is any device by which they may
either be kept out or eliminated — until the time is ripe. The
presence of opportunists and reformists in all Socialist parties
is as much an inevitable result at a certain stage of social
evolution as the appearance of Socialism itself. The time
will come when these "Mitlaiifer," as the Germans call them,
will either become wholly Socialist or will desert the move-
ment, as has so often happened, to become a part of the rising
tide of "State Socialism," but that day has not yet arrived.

The division of the organization at a certain stage into two
wings is held by the able Austrian Socialist, Otto Bauer, to
be a universal and necessary process in its development. The
first stage is one where all party members are agreed, since
it is then merely a question of the propaganda of general
and revolutionary ideas. The second stage (the present
one) arises when the party has already obtained a modest
measure of power which can be either cashed in and utilized
for immediate and material gains or saved up and held for
obtaining more power, or for both objects in degrees varying
according as one or the other is considered more important.
Bauer shows that these two policies of accumulating power
and of spending it arise necessarily out of the social composi--
tion of the party at its present stage and the general social
environment in which it finds itself.

At the third stage, he says, when the proletariat has come
to form the overwhelming majority of the population, their
campaign for the conquest of political power appears to the
possessing classes for the first time as a threatening danger.
The capitalist parties then unite closely together against the
Social Democracy ; what once separated them now appears
small in comparison to the danger which threatens their
profits, their rents, and their monopolistic incomes. So there
arises again at this higher stage of capitalist domination, as was

240 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the case at its beginning, "a Social Democracy in battle
against all the possessing classes, against the whole power of
the organized state." (Italics mine.) (9) When the third
stage arrives, these reformists who do not intend to
leave the revolutionary movement, begin to get ready
to follow it. Already the most prominent reformist So-
cialists outside of England claim that their position is
revolutionary. This is true of the best-known German re-
formist, Bernstein ; it is true of Jaures ; and it is also true
of Berger in this country. Bernstein argues in his book,
"Evolutionary Socialism," that constitutional legislation is
best adapted to positive social-political work, "to the creation
of permanent economic arrangements." But he also says
that "the revolutionary way does quicker work as far as it
deals with removal of obstacles which a privileged minority
places in the path of social progress." As for choosing be-
tween the revolutionary and non-revolutionary methods, he
admits that revolutionary tactics can be abandoned only
when the non-propertied majority of a nation has become
firmly established in power; that is, when political democracy
is so deeply rooted and advanced that it can be applied suc-
cessfully to questions of property; "when a nation has
attained a position where the rights of the propertied minor-
ity have ceased to be a serious obstacle of social progress."
Certainly no nation could claim to be in such a position to-
day, unless it were, possibly, Australia, though there the
empire of unoccupied land gives to every citizen possibilities
at least of acquiring property, and relieves the pressure of
the class struggle until the country is settled. This view
of Bernstein's, let it be noted, is a far different one from that
prevailing in England — as expressed, for example, in an
organ of the Independent Labour Party, where it is said that
"fortunately 'revolution' in this country has ceased to be
anything more than an affected phrase." Certainly there
are few modern countries where the "propertied minority,"
of which Bernstein speaks, constitutes a more serious obstacle
to progress than it does in England.

Jaures's position is quite similar to that of Bernstein. He
declared in a recent French Congress that he was both a
revolutionist and a reformer. He indorses the idea of the
general strike, but urges that it should not be used until the
work of education and propaganda has made the time ready,
"until a very large and strong organization is ready to back

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 241

up the strikers/' and until a large section of public opinion
is prepared to recognize the legitimacy of their object. He
says he expects the time to arrive when "the reforms in the
interest of the whole working class which have been promised
will have been systematically refused," and then "the general
strike will be the only resource left"; and finally cries, "Never
in the name of the working people will we give up the right
of insurrection." This position is verbally correct from the
Socialist standpoint, and it shows the power of the revolu-
tionary idea in France, when even Jaures is forced to respect
it. But any capitalist politician might safely use the same
expressions — so long, at least, as revolution is still far away.
So also Mr. Berger has written in the Social Democratic
Herald of Milwaukee that "all the ballot can do is to
strengthen the power of resistance of the laboring people."

"We whom the western ultra class-conscious proletarians . . .
are wont to call 'opportunists,' " writes Berger, "we know right well
that the social question can no more be solved by street riots and
insurrections than by bombs and dynamite.

"Yet, by the ballot alone, it will never be solved.

"Up to this time men have always solved great questions by blood
and iron." Berger says he is not given to reciting revolutionary
phrases, but asserts that the plutocrats are taking the country in
the direction of "a violent and bloody revolution."

"Therefore," he says, "each of the 500,000 Socialist voters, and
of the two million workingmen who instinctively incline our way,
should, besides doing much reading and still more thinking, also
have a good rifle and the necessary rounds of ammunition in his
home and be prepared to back up his ballot with his bullets if neces-
sary. . . . Now, I deny that dealing with a blind and greedy
plutocratic class as we are dealing in this country, the outcome can
ever be peaceable, or that any reasonable change can ever be brought
about by the ballot in the end.

"I predict that a large part of the capitalist class will be wiped
out for much smaller things . . . most of the- plutocratic class,
together with the politicians, will have to disappear as completely
as the feudal lords and their retinue disappeared during the French
revolution.

"That cannot be done by the ballot, or only by the ballot.

"The ballot cannot count for much in a pinch." (10) (My
italics.)

And in another number Mr. Berger writes: —

"As long as we are in the minority we, of course, have no right
to force our opinion upon an unwilling majority . . . Yet we do not

B

242 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

deny that after we have convinced the majority of the people, we are
going to use force if the minority should hesitate." (11) (My
italics.)

Few will question the revolutionary nature of this language.
But such expressions have always been common at critical
moments, even among non-Socialists. We have only to
recall the "bloody-bridles" speech of a former populist
governor of Colorado, or the advice of the New York Evening
Journal that every citizen ought to provide against future
contingencies by keeping a rifle in his home. Revolutionary
language has no necessary relation to Socialism.

Mr. Berger, moreover, has also used the threat of revolu-
tion, not as a progressive but as a reactionary force, not in
the sense of Marx, who believed that a revolution, when the
times were ripe and the Socialists ready, would bring in-
calculably more good than evil, but in the sense of the capital-
ists, for whom it is the most terrible of all possibilities. It is
common for conservative statesmen to use precisely the same
threat to secure necessary capitalist reforms.

"Some day there will be a volcanic eruption," said Berger
in his first speech hi Congress; "a fearful retribution will be
enacted on the capitalist class as a class, and the innocent
will suffer with the guilty. Such a revolution would throw
humanity back into semi-barbarism and cause even a tem-
porary retrogression of civilization."

Such is the language used against revolutions by conserv-
atives or reactionaries. Never has it been so applied by a
Marx or an Engels, a Liebknecht, a Kautsky or a Bebel.
Without underestimating the enormous cost of revolutions,
the most eminent Socialists reckon them as nothing compared
with the probable gains, or the far greater costs of continu-
ing present conditions. The assertion of manhood that is
involved in every great revolution from below in itself implies,
in the Socialist view, not retrogression, but a stupendous
advance; and any reversion to semi-barbarism that may
take place in the course of the revolution is likely, in
their opinion, to be far more than compensated in other di-
rections, even during the revolutionary period (to say nothing
of ultimate results).

Revolutionary phrases and scares are of course abhorred
by capitalistic parties, and considered dangerous, unless
there is some very strong occasion for reverting to their use.

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 243

But such occasions are becoming more and more frequent.
Conservative capitalists are more and more grateful for any
outbreak that alarms or burdens the neutral classes and
serves as a useful pretext for that repression or reaction which
their interests require. Progressive capitalists, on the other
hand, use the very same disturbances to urge reforms they
desire, on the ground that such measures are necessary to
avoid "revolution." The disturbance may be as far as
possible from revolutionary at bottom. It is only necessary
that it should be sufficiently novel and disagreeable to attract
attention and cause impatience and irritation among those
who have to pay for it. Like the British strikes of 1911, it
may not cost the capitalist class as a whole one-hundredth
part of one per cent of its income. And it might be possible
to repress, within a short time and at no greater expense,
a movement many times more menacing. Provided it
serves to put the supporters of capitalism on their feet,
whatever they do as a result, whether in the way of repres-
sion or of reform, will be but to carry out long-cherished plans
for advancing their own interests, plans that would have
been the same even though there had been no shadow of a
"revolutionary" movement on the horizon. The only differ-
ence is that such pseudo-revolutionary or semi-revolutionary
disturbances serve as stimuli to put the more inert of the cap-
italist forces in motion, and, until the disturbances become
truly menacing, strengthen the capitalist position.

The use of revolutionary phrases does not then, of itself,
demonstrate an approach to the revolutionary position,
though we may assume, on other grounds, that the majority
of the reformist Socialists, who take a revolutionary posi-
tion as regards certain future contingencies, are in earnest.
But this indicates nothing as to the character of their Social-
ism to-day. The important question is, how far their revo-
lutionary philosophy goes when directed, not at a hypothet-
ical future situation but to questions of the present moment.

In all the leading countries of the world, except Great
Britain, the majority of Socialists expect a revolutionary
crisis in the future, because they recognize, with that able
student of the movement, Professor Sombart, that "history
knows of no case where a class has freely given up the rights
which it regarded as belonging to itself." (12) This does not
mean that Socialists suppose that all progress must await
a revolutionary period. Engels insisted that he and his

244 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

associates were profiting more by lawful than by unlawful
and revolutionary action. It means that Socialists do not
believe that the capitalists will allow such action to remain
lawful long enough materially to increase the income of
the working class and its economic and political power as
compared with their own.

Jaures's position as to present politics is based on the very
opposite view. "You will have to lead millions of men to
the borders of an impassable gulf," he says to the revolution-
ists, "but the gulf will not be easier for the millions of men
to pass over than it was for a hundred thousand. What
we wish is to try to diminish the width of the gulf which sep-
arates the exploited in present-day society from their sit-
uation in the new society." (13) The revolutionaries assert,
on the contrary, that nothing Socialists can do at the present
time can moderate the class war, or lessen the power of cap-
italism to maintain and increase the distance between itself
and the masses. In direct disagreement with Jaures, they
say that when a sufficient numerical majority has been ac-
quired, especially in this day when the masses are educated,
it will be able to overcome any obstacle whatever, even what
Jaurds calls the impassable gulf — whether in the meanwhile
that gulf will have become narrower or wider than it is to-day,
and they believe that the day of this triumph would be
delayed rather than brought nearer if the workers were to
divert their energies from revolutionary propaganda and
organization, to political trading in the interest of reforms
that bring no greater gains to the workers than to their
exploiters. The revolutionary majority believes that the
best that can be done at present is for the workers to train
and organize themselves, and always to devise and study
and prepare the means by which capitalism can be most
successfully and economically assaulted when sufficient
numbers are once aroused for successful revolt.

When revolutionary Socialism is not pure speculation, it
takes the form of the present-day "class struggle" against
capitalism. The view that existing society can be gradually
transformed into a social democratic one, Kautsky believes
to be merely an inheritance of the past, of a period "when
it was generally believed that further development would
take place exclusively on the economic field, without the
necessity of any kind of change in the relative distribution of
political institutions." (Italics mine.) (14)

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 245

"Neither a railroad [that is, its administration] nor a
ministry can be changed gradually, but only at a single
stroke," says Kautsky, to illustrate the sort of a change
Socialists expect. The need of such a complete change does
not decrease on account of any reforms that are introduced
before such a change takes place. "There are some politic-
ians," he says, "who assert that only despotic class rule
necessitates revolution; that revolution is rendered super-
fluous by democracy. It is claimed that we have to-day
sufficient democracy in all civilized countries to make pos-
sible a peaceable revolutionless development." (My italics.)
As means by which these politicians hope to achieve such a
revolutionless development, Kautsky mentions the gradual
increase of the power of the trade unions, the penetration
of Socialists into local governments, and finally the growing
power of Socialist minorities in parliaments where they are
supposed to be gaining increasing influence, pushing through
one reform after another, restricting the power of the capital-
ists by labor legislation and extending the functions of the
government. "So by the exercise of democratic rights upon
existing grounds, the capitalist society is [according to these
opportunists] gradually and without any shock growing into
Socialism." (15)

"This idyl becomes true," Kautsky says, "only if we grant
that but one side of the opposed forces [the proletariat] is
growing and increasing in strength, while the other side [the
capitalists] remains immovably fixed to the same spot."
But he believes that the very contrary is the case, that the
capitalists are gaining in strength all the time, and that the
advance of the working class merely goads the capitalists
on "to develop new powers and to discover and apply new
methods of resistance and repression." (16)

Kautsky says that the present form of democracy, though
it is to the Socialist movement what light and air are to the
organism, hinders in no way the development of capitalism,
the organization and economic powers of which improve and
increase faster than those of the working people. "To be
sure, the unions are growing," say Kautsky, "but simul-
taneously and faster grows the concentration of capital and
its organization into gigantic monopolies. To be sure, the
Socialist press is growing, but simultaneously grows the party-
less and characterless press that poisons and unnerves even
wider circles of people. To be sure, wages are rising, but

246 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

still faster rise the accumulations of profits. Certainly the
number of Socialist representatives in Parliament grows, but
still more rapidly sinks the significance and efficiency of this
institution, while 'at the same time parliamentary majorities,
like the government, fall into ever greater dependence on
the powers of high finance." (Possibly events of the past
year or two mark the beginning of the waning of the powers
of monopolists, and of the partial transfer of those powers
to a capitalistic middle class ; but exploitation of the working
class continues under such new masters no less vigorously
than before.)

A recent discussion between Kautsky and the reformist
leader, Maurenbrecher, brought out some of these points
very sharply. (17) Maurenbrecher said, "In Parliament we
wish to do practical work, to secure funds for social reforms —
so that step by step we may go on toward the transformation
of our class government." Kautsky replied that while the
revolutionaries wish also to do practical work in Parliament,
they can "see beyond"; and he says of Maurenbrecher's
view : " This would all be very fine, if we were alone in the
world, if we could arrange our fields of battle and our tactics
to suit our taste. But we have to do with opponents who
venture everything to prevent the triumph of the proletariat.
Comrade Maurenbrecher will acknowledge, I suppose, that
the victory of the proletariat will mean the end of capitalist
exploitation. Does he expect the exploiters to look on good-
naturedly while we take one position after another and make
ready for their expropriation ? If so, he lives under a mighty
illusion. Imagine for a moment that our parliamentary
activity were to assume forms which threatened the suprem-
acy of the capitalists. What would happen ? The capitalists
would try to put an end to parliamentary forms of govern-
ment. In particular they would rather do away with the uni-
versal, direct, and secret ballot than quietly capitulate to
the proletariat." As Premier von Buelow declared while
in office that he would not hesitate to take the measure that
Kautsky anticipates, we have every reason to believe that
this very coup d'etat is still contemplated in Germany — and
we have equally good reason to believe that if the Socialists
were about to obtain a majority in the governments of
France, Great Britain, or the United States, the capitalist
class, yet in control, would be ready to abolish, not only
universal suffrage and various constitutional rights, but any

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 247

and all rights of the people that stood in the way of the main-
tenance of capitalistic rule. Declarations of Briand and
Roosevelt quoted in later chapters (Part III, Chapters VI
and VII) are illustrations of what might be expected.

The same position taken by Kautsky in Germany is taken
by Otto Bauer, who seems destined to succeed Victor Adler
(upon the latter's death or retirement) as the most represent-
ative and influential spokesman of the Austrian Party. Re-
viewing the political situation after the Vienna food riots of
1911, Dr. Bauer writes: —

"The illusion that, once having won equal suffrage, we might
peacefully and gradually raise up the working class, proceeding
from one 'positive result ' to another, has been completely destroyed.
In Austria, also, the road leads to the increase of class oppositions,
to the heaping up of wealth on the one side, and of misery, revolt,
and embitterment on the other, to the division of society into two
hostile camps, arming and preparing themselves for war." (18)

Even though underlying economic forces should be found
to be improving Labor's condition at a snail's pace, instead
of actually heaping up more misery, no changes would be
required in any of the other statements, or in the conclusion
of this paragraph, which, with this exception, undoubtedly
expresses the views of the overwhelming majority of So-
cialists the world over.

"Democracy cannot do away with the class antagonisms
of capitalist society," says Kautsky, referring to the "State
Socialist" reforms of semidemocratic governments like those
of Australia and Great Britain. "Neither can we avoid the
final outcome of these antagonisms — the overthrow of
present society. One thing it can do. It cannot abolish the
revolution, but it can avert many premature, hopeless revo-
lutionary attempts and render superfluous many revolution-
ary uprisings. It creates clearness regarding the relative
strength of the different parties and classes."

The late Paul Lafargue stated the same principle at a
recent congress of the PVench Socialist Party, contending that,
as long as capitalists still control the national administration,
representatives are sent by the Socialists to the Chamber of
Deputies, not in the hope of diminishing the power of the cap-
italist State to oppress, but to combat this power, "to procure
for the Party a new and more magnificent field of battle."

CHAPTER VII
THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND

WITH the exception of a few years (1899 to 1903) the rev-
olutionary and anti-" reformist " (not anti-reform) position
of the international movement has become stronger every
year. It is a relatively short time, not more than twenty
years, since the reformists first began to make themselves
heard in the Socialist movement, and their influence increased
until the German Congress at Dresden in 1903, the Interna-
tional Congress of 1904 at Amsterdam, and the definite
separation of the Socialists of France from Millerand at this
time and from Briand shortly afterwards (Chapter II). Since
then their influence has rapidly receded.

The spirit of the international movement, on the whole, is
more and more that of the great German Socialist Wilhelm
Liebknecht, who* ad vised the party to be " always on the of-
fensive and never on the defensive," (1) or of La Salle when
he declared, "True political power will have to be fought for,
and cannot be bought." (2)

The revolutionary policy of the leading Socialist parties
has not become less pronounced with their growth and ma-
turity as opponents hoped it would. On the contrary, all the
most important Socialist assemblies of the last ten years,
from the International Congress at Paris in 1900, have re-
iterated or strengthened the old position. The Congress of
Paris in 1900 adopted a resolution introduced by Kautsky
which declared that the " Social Democracy has taken to itself
the task of organizing the working people into an army ready
for the social war, and it must, therefore, above all else, make
sure that the working classes become conscious of their inter-
ests and of their power." The great task of the Socialists at
the present time is the preparation of the social war of the
future, and not any effort to improve the capitalists' society.
The working classes are to be made conscious of their own
strength — which will surely not be brought about by any
reforms which, however much they may benefit the workers,

248

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 249

favor equally or to a still greater degree the capitalistic and
governing classes.

The resolution continued: "The proletariat in a modern
democratic State cannot obtain political power accidentally.
It can do so only when the long and difficult work of the
political and economic organization of the proletariat is at
an end, when its physical and moral regeneration have been
accomplished, and when more and more seats have been won
in municipal and other legislative bodies. . . . But where
the government is centralized, political power cannot be
obtained step by step." (The italics are mine.) (3)

According to the proposer and mover of this resolution and
its supporters, nearly all, if not all, modern governments are
at the bottom centralized in one form or another. So the
resolution amounts to saying that political power cannot be
obtained step by step. The election of Socialist minorities
in the legislatures can only be used to urge capitalism on its
work of bringing up the physical condition and industrial
productivity of the masses, and not for the purpose of or-
ganizing and educating them with the object of seizing the
reins of power, of overthrowing capitalism, and revolutionizing
the present form of government.

The resolution adopted at the following International
Congress at Amsterdam (in 1904) was necessitated by certain
ambiguities in the former one. Yet Kautsky's explanation of
his own meaning makes it quite clear that even the Paris
resolution was revolutionary in its intent, and the Amsterdam
Congresses, moreover, readopted its main proposition that
"the Social Democracy could not accept any participation in
government in capitalist society."

At this latter congress Jaures's proposed reformist tactics
were definitely and finally rejected so that they have not even
been discussed at the later international gatherings. This
was a critical moment in the international movement ; for it
was about this time that the tendency to opportunism was at
its strongest, and this was the year in which it was decided
against Jaures that all Millerands of the future, impatient
to seize immediate power in the name of Socialism, no matter
how sincerely they might hope in this way to benefit the
movement, should be looked upon as traitors to the cause.
The terms upon which such power was secured or held were
considered necessarily to be such as to compromise the prin-
ciples of the movement. Socialists in high government

250 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

positions, it was pointed out, by the very fact of their accept-
ance of such responsibilities, become servants of a capitalistic
administration — and of the economic regime it supports.

Jaures began his argument with the proposition that the
difference between Socialism and mere reform consisted in
the fact that the former alone worked for "a total realization
of all reforms" and "the complete transformation of capital-
istic property into social property" -which is merely the
statement of Socialism as an ultimate ideal, now indorsed
even by many anti-Socialists. He next quoted Liebknecht
to the effect that there were only 200,000 individuals in Ger-
many, and Guesde, Jaures's chief Socialist opponent in France,
to the effect that the number was the same in the latter coun-
try, who, on account of their economic interests, were directly
and completely opposed to Socialism; and this being the
case, he held that the task of the body of working people
already organized by the Socialists against capitalism, was
gradually to draw all but this 200,000 into the Socialist ranks.
He concluded that it was the duty of the Socialists to "ward
off reaction, to obtain reforms and to develop labor legisla-
tion" by the help of this larger mass, which, when added to
their own numbers, constituted 97 or 98 per cent of the popu-
lation.

It goes without saying, replied the revolutionaries, that all
Socialists will lend their assistance to any elements of the
population who are fighting against reaction and in favor of
labor legislation and reform, but it does not follow that they
should consider this the chief part of their work, nor that they
should even feel it necessary to claim that the Socialists were
leading the non-Socialists in these matters.

In contrasting his section of the French Party with the
German movement, Jaures claimed that the French were
both more revolutionary than the German, and more practical
in their efforts at immediate reform. "You," he said, speak-
ing to the Germans, "have neither a revolutionary nor a
parliamentary activity." He reminded them that having
never had a revolution they could not have a revolutionary
tradition, that universal suffrage had been given to them from
above (by Bismarck), instead of having been conquered from
below, that they had been forced tamely to submit when they
had recently been robbed of it in Saxony. "You continue
in this way too often," he continued, "to obscure and to
weaken, in the German working class, the force of a revolu-

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 251

tionary tradition already too weak through historic causes."
And finally he asserted that the German Socialists, who, a
year or so before this conference, had obtained the enormous
number of 3,000,000 votes, had been able to do nothing with
them in the Reichstag. He said that this was due in part
to the character of the German movement, as shaped by the
circumstances of the past, and partly to the fact that the
Reichstag was powerless in the German government, and
claimed that they would have been only too glad to follow
the French reformists' course, if they could have done so, just
as their only reason for not using revolutionary measures was
also that the German government was too strong for them.

"Then," concluded Jaures, "you do not know which road
you will choose. There was expected from you after this
great victory a battle cry, a program of action, a policy.
You have explored, you have spied around, watched events ;
the public's state of mind was not ripe. And then before
your own working class and before the international working
class, you masked the feebleness of your activity by taking
refuge in extreme theoretical formulas which your eminent
comrade, Kautsky, will furnish to you until the life goes out
of him." As time has not yet tested Jaures's accusations, they
cannot yet be finally disproved or proved. The replies of
his revolutionary opponents at the Congress were chiefly
counter-accusations. But the later development of the Ger-
man movement gives, as I shall show, strong reasons why
Jaures's criticisms should be accepted as being true only of the
reformist minority of the German Party.

Jaures referred to the British unionists as an example of
the success of reformist tactics. Bebel was able to dispose
of this argument. "The capitalists of England are the most
able in the world," he said. " If next year at the general elec-
tions English Liberalism is victorious, it will again make one of
you, perhaps John Burns, an Under Secretary of State, not to
take an advance towards Socialism, but to be able to say to the
working people that it gives them voluntarily what has been
refused after a struggle on the Continent, in order to keep
the votes of the workers." (This is just what happened.)

"Socialism," he concluded, "cannot accept a share of
power ; it is obliged to wait for all of the power."

The Amsterdam resolution, passed by a large majority after
this debate, was almost identical with that which had been
adopted by a vote of 288 to 11 at the German Congress at

252 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Dresden in the previous year (1903), and although the
Austrian delegates and others, nearly half the total, had ex-
pressed a preference for a substitute of a more moderate
character, they did not hesitate, when this motion was de-
feated, to indorse the more radical one that was finally
adopted. And in 1909, when this Dresden (or Amsterdam)
resolution came up for discussion at the German Congress of
Leipzig, it was unanimously reaffirmed. Those opposing it
did not dare to dispute it at all in principle, but merely ex-
pressed the mental reservation that it was qualified by another
resolution adopted at a recent Congress which had declared
that the party should be absolutely free to decide the question
of temporary political alliances in elections. As such electoral
combinations, valid only for the second ballot, and lapsing im-
mediately after the elections, had always been common, the
Dresden resolution was never meant by the majority of those
voting for it to forbid them. Its purpose was only to insist
that the obj ect of the Socialists must always be social revolution
and not reform, since, to use its own words, supreme political
power "cannot be obtained step by step."

"The Congress condemns most emphatically," the Dresden
resolution declared, "the revisionist attempt to alter our
hitherto victorious policy, a policy based upon the class
struggle ; just as in the past we shall go on achieving power by
conquering our enemies, not by compromising with the existing
order of things." (My italics.) In a recent letter widely
quoted by the continental press, August Bebel contended that
in Germany at least the Social Democracy and the other
political parties have grown farther and farther apart during
the last fifty years. While Bebel claims that Socialists sup-
port every form of progress, he insists that nevertheless they
remain fundamentally opposed even to the Liberal parties,
for the reason, as he explained at the Jena Congress (1905),
that "an opposition party can, on the whole, have no decisive in-
fluence until it gains control of the government," that until the
Socialists themselves have a majority, governments could be
controlled only by an alHance with non-Socialist parties.
"If you (the Socialist Party) want to have that kind of an
influence," said Bebel, "then stick your program in your
pocket, leave the standpoint of your principles, concern your-
self only with purely practical things, and you will be cordially
welcome as allies." (Italics mine.) At the Nuremburg Con-
gress (1908) he said : "We shall reach our goal, not through

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 253

little concessions, through creeping on the ground, and coming
down to the masses in this way, but by raising the masses up
to us, by inspiring them with our great aims."

Another question arose in the German Party which at the
bottom involved the same principles. It had been settled
that Socialists could not accept a share in any non-Socialist
administration, no matter how progressive it might be. But
if a social reform government is ready to grant one or more
measures much desired by Socialists, shall the latter vote the
new taxes necessary for these measures, thus affording new
resources to a hostile government, and shall it further support
the annual budget of the administration, thus extending the
powers of the capitalist party that happens to be in power ?
The Socialist policy, it is acknowledged, has hitherto been to
vote for these individual reforms, but never to prolong the
life of an existing non-Socialist government. The fundamental
question, says Kautsky, is to whom is the budget granted, and
not what measures are proposed. "To grant the budget,"
he says, "means to give the government the right to raise
the taxes provided for ; it means to put into the hands of the
governor the control of hundreds of millions of money, as well
as hundreds of thousands of people, laborers and officeholders,
who are paid out of these millions." That is to say, the
Socialist Party, according to the reasoning of Kautsky and the
overwhelming majority of Socialists, wherever it has become
a national factor of the first importance, must remain an
opposition party — until the main purpose for which it
exists has been accomplished; namely, the capture of the
government, and for this purpose it must make every effort
to starve out one administration after another by refusing
supplies. At the National Congress at Nuremburg in 1908
it was decided by a two-thirds vote that in no one of the
confederated governments of Germany would Socialists be
allowed to vote for any government other than that of their
own party, no matter how radical it might be, unless under
altogether extraordinary circumstances, such as are not
likely to occur. Some of the delegates of South Germany
said that they would not be bound by this decision, but later
a number expressed their willingness to accede to it, while
others of them were forced to to so by the local congresses of
their own party.

This question was brought up at the German Congress at
Leipzig in 1909. The parties in possession of the govern-

254 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ment had proposed a graduated inheritance tax, which nearly
all Socialists approve. Moreover, a part of the taxes of the
year would be used for social reforms. Favoring as they did
the change in the method of taxation, would the Socialist
members of the Reichstag be justified in voting for the pro-
posed tax at the third reading ? All agreed that it was well to
express their friendly attitude to this form of tax at the earlier
readings, but approval at the third reading might have the
effect of finally turning over a new sum of money to an un-
friendly government; although it would be collected from
the wealthier classes alone, it might be expended largely for
anti-democratic purposes. The revolutionaries, with whom
stood the chairman of the convention, the late Paul Singer,
were against voting for the tax on the third reading, for they
argued that if the Socialists granted an increased income to
a hostile government merely because they were pleased with
the form of the taxes proposed, it might become possible in
the future for capitalist governments to secure Socialist
financial support in raising the money for any kind of re-
actionary measures merely by proving that they were not
obtaining the means for carrying them out from the working
people.

Half of the members of the Parliamentary group, on the
other hand, decided in favor of voting for the tax on the third
reading, the reformists largely on the ground that it would
furnish the means for social reforms, Bebel and others, how-
ever, on the entirely different ground that if the upper classes
had to pay the bill for imperialism and militarism, the increase
of expenditures on armaments would not long continue.

The " radical " Socialists represented by Ledebour proposed
that not one penny should be granted the Empire except in
return for true constitutional government by the Kaiser.
Certainly this was not asking too much, even though it
would constitute a political revolution, for the majority of
the whole Reichstag afterwards adopted a resolution pro-
posed by Ledebour demanding such guarantees. In other
words, he would make all other questions second to that of
political power — no economic reform whatever being a suf-
ficient price to compensate for turning aside from the effort
to obtain democratic government, i.e. more power.

Bebel, however, said he would have voted for the bill if he
had been present, though he made it clear both at this and
at the succeeding congress that he had no intention of

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 255

affording the least support to a capitalistic administration
(see below) .

It appears that Bebel's position on this matter is really the
more radical. Ledebour and Singer seemed to feel that the
further democratization of the government depends on
Socialist pressure. The more revolutionary view is that
capitalism in Germany, with the irresponsible Kaiser, the
unequal Reichstag election districts, the anti-democratic
suffrage law and constitution in Prussia, is impregnable —
but that the progressive capitalists may themselves force
the reactionaries to take certain steps toward democracy in
order to check absolutism, bureaucracy, church influence,
agrarian legislation, and certain excesses of militarism.
(See the previous chapter.) The position of the "radicals"
was that capitalism was so profoundly reactionary that even
the shifting of the burdens of taxation for military purposes
to capitalist shoulders should not check it. Bebel's view
was more revolutionary. For even conceding to capitalism
the possibility of checking armaments and ending wars, and
of establishing semidemocratic governments on the French
or English models, he finds the remainder of the indictment
against it quite sufficient to justify the most revolutionary
policy.

However, the main question was not really involved at this
Congress. A government might be supported on this tax
question and the support be withdrawn later when it came
to a critical vote on the budget as a whole, or on some other
favorable occasion.

It was only at the Congress at Magdeburg, in 1910, that the
latter question was finally disposed of. The Magdeburg
Congress not only reaffirmed the revolutionary policy pre-
viously decided upon by the German and International
Congresses already mentioned, but it also showed that the
revolutionary majority, stronger and more determined than
ever, was ready and able to carry out its intention of forcing
the reformist minority to follow the revolutionary course.
This congress, besides more accurately defining the view of
the revolutionary majority, made clearer than ever the pro-
found differences of opinion in the Socialist camp. The sub-
ject under discussion was : Can a Socialist party support a
relatively progressive capitalist government by voting for the
budget when no fatal danger threatens the party's existence,
such as some coup d'etat f Seventeen of the twenty Socialist

256 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

members of the Legislature of Baden, without any such excuse,
had supported a more or less progressive government and
kept it in power, the very action that had been so often for-
bidden.

The importance of this act of revolt lay in the fact that the
government the Socialists had supported, however progressive
it might be, was frankly anti-Socialist. On several occasions
the Prime Minister, Herr von Bodman, has made declarations
of the most hostile character, as, for instance, that no em-
ployee of the government could be a Social-Democrat, and
that the local officials should make reports of the personnel
of the army recruits "so that those of Social-Democratic
leanings could be properly attended to." After one of these
declarations, even the Socialist members of the legislature
who had previously planned to vote for the government, were
repelled, and decided that was impossible to carry out their
intentions. The Prime Minister thereupon made a con-
ciliatory speech for the purpose of once more obtaining this
vote. But even this speech was by no means free from the
most marked hostility to Socialism. "To portray the Social-
Democracy as a mere disease is not correct," said he; "it is
to be cast aside in so far as it fights the monarchy and the
political order. But, on the other hand, it is a tremendous
movement for the uplift of the fourth estate, and therefore it
deserves recognition."

It will be seen that the Prime Minister withdrew nothing
of his previous accusations. But the Baden Social-Democrats
finally decided that, if they did not support him, some impor-
tant reforms would be lost, especially a proposed improve-
ment of the suffrage for town and township officials. This
was not a very radical advance, for even the Frantfurter
Zeitung, a strongly anti-Socialist organ, wrote that "from
the standpoint of consistent Liberalism the bill left so many
aspirations and so many just demands unfulfilled that even
the parties of the left, not to speak of the Social-Democrats,
would be justified in declining to pass the measure."

Indeed the South German reformists do not really pre-
tend that it is any one particular reform that justifies laying
aside or temporarily subordinating the fight against capitalist
government. At the Nuremburg Congress in 1908 the ground
given for an act of this kind was that if Socialists did not vote
for that budget particularly, a large number of the officials
and workingmen employed by the government would fail to

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 257

receive the raise of wages or salary that it offered. Heir
Frank, spokesman of the Baden Party, now defended the
capitalist government of Baden and the Socialist action in
supporting it, on the general ground that advantages could
thus be secured for the working classes. Of course, this brings
up immediately the question : if moderate material advan-
tages are all the working people are striving for, why cannot
some other party which has more power than the Socialists
give still more of these advantages? Indeed, the fact that
all these reforms were supported by capitalist parties and were
allowed to pass by a frankly capitalistic government (pro-
gressive, no doubt, but anti-Socialist), gives this government
and these parties a superior claim to the credit of having
brought the reforms about.

What were "the advantages for the struggle of the working
class" that Frank and his associates could obtain by voting
for the Baden Budget of 1910 — besides the extension of the
suffrage ? First importance was placed upon school reforms.
Several religious normal schools were abolished ; women were
permitted to serve on municipal committees for school affairs
and charities; the wages of teachers were somewhat in-
creased; school girls were given an extra year; physicians
were introduced into the schools ; and a law was passed by
which, for the first time, children were no longer forced to take
religious instruction against the will of their parents. Social-
Democrats in the legislature were allowed for the first time
to write the reports for important committees, such as those
on the schools, factory inspection, and town or township taxa-
tion. Aside from these considerable improvements in the
schools and in the election law, the only advantage of im-
portance was a decrease of the income tax for those who earn
less than 1400 marks ($350). One might have expected that
a government which claims to be progressive, to say nothing
of being radical or Socialistic, would altogether have exempted
from taxation incomes as small as $350 — modest even for
Germany. Frank mentions also that 100,000 marks ($20,000)
was appropriated for insurance against unemployment, but
this sum is trifling for a State the size of Baden.

It was not denied by the radical Socialists that such measures
are desirable, but they did not feel that it was worth while,
on that account, to lay aside their main business, that of
building up a movement to overthrow capitalist government.
As I have shown, capitalist governments may be expected

258 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

continually to inaugurate programs of reform which, while
strengthening capitalism, are incidentally of more or less
benefit to the working class. This is neither any part of
Socialism, nor does it tend towards decreasing the economic
disparity between the classes.

"If small concessions and trifles have been referred to,"
said the revolutionary Karl Liebknecht, "it must not be
understood that by this it is meant to undervalue the practical
work of the Badenese, but that what has been attained is
considered to be small, when measured by the greatness of our
aims. The so-called radicals, these are the true reformers,
the realistic political reformers who do not overlook the forest
on account of the trees."

Bebel, in two long speeches delivered at this Congress, de-
fined the Socialist attitude to existing governments and exist-
ing political parties in a way that no longer leaves it possible
that any earnest student of Socialism can misunderstand it.
He was supported by the overwhelming majority of the Con-
gress when he said that the policy of the Baden Social-
Democrats meant practically the support of the National
Liberals ; that is to say, of the conservative party of the large
capitalists. The Socialists of Germany all consider that the
parties nearest related to theirs are the Radical or small
capitalist parties, formerly called the "Freethinkers" and
the "People's" parties (Freisinnige and Volkspartei) and
now united under the name Progressive Party. But a tacit,
alliance with these alone could not have been brought about
in Baden, so that the Socialists there favored going so far as
to ally themselves for all practical purposes with the chief
organization representing the bankers, manufactures, and
employers — with the object, of course, of overcoming the
conservatives, the Catholic and aristocratic parties.

"Now all of a sudden we hear that our tactics are false.
that we must ally ourselves with the National Liberals," said
Bebel. "We even have National Liberals in our party. ... But
if one is a National Liberal, then one must get out. The Badenese
speak of the great results which they have obtained with the
help of the Great Alliance [i.e. an alliance with both National
Liberals and Radicals]. Now results which are reached with
the help of the National Liberals don't bring us very far.

"If we combine with capitalistic parties, you can bet a
thousand to one that we are the losers by it. It is, so to speak ,
a law of nature, that in a combination of the right and the left

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 259

the right draws the profits. Such a combination cripples
criticism and places us under obligations."

"The government can well conciliate the exploited classes in
case of necessity, but never with a fundamental social trans-
formation in the direction of the socialization of society." The
reader must here avoid confusion. Bebel does not say that
the ruling class cannot or will not bring about great legislative
and political reforms, such as large governmental undertak-
ings of more or less benefit to every class of the community,
like canals or railways, but that such measures as are con-
ceded to the Socialist pressure and at the same time actually
work in the direction of Socialism are few and insignificant.
Bebel's meaning is clear if we remember that we do not move
towards Socialism unless the reforms when taken together are
sufficient both to counteract governmental changes and the auto-
matic movement of society in the opposite direction.

Frank tried to make out that his action and that of his
companions in allying themselves with a progressive capitalist
government was similar to that taken by the Socialists in other
countries. He mentioned Denmark, England, and Austria,
and one of the governments of Switzerland (Berne), and also
claimed that the Belgians would probably support a Liberal
government in case they and the Liberals gained a majority.
All these statements except one (that concerning England)
Bebel denied. We do not need to take his interpretation of
the Austrian situation, however, any more than Frank's, for
an Austrian delegate, Schrammel, was present and explained
the position of his party. "If we voted for the immediate
consideration of the budget, we voted only for taking up the
question and not for the budget itself. ... I declare on
this occasion that the comrades can rest assured as to our
conduct in the Austrian Parliament, that we would under
no circumstances vote for a budget without having the con-
sent of our comrades in the realm. We will not act inde-
pendently, but will always submit ourselves to the decisions
of the majority taken for that particular occasion." It would
seem from this that the Austrians are considering the possi-
bility of voting for the budget under certain circumstances.
But the Germans would also do this much, and it is uncertain
whether the cases in which the Austrians would take this
action would be any more frequent.

As to the English attitude, Bebel said : "The English can-
not serve us as a model for all things, first because England

260 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

has quite other conditions, and secondly, because there is no
great Social-Democratic Party there at the present moment.
Marx would no longer point to trade unions there as the
champions of the European proletariat. From 1871 Marx
showed the German Social-Democracy that it was its duty to
take the lead. We have done this, and we will continue to do
it, if we are sensible." As to Denmark, Bebel said that he
was assured by one of the most prominent representatives
of the Danish movement that even if the Socialists and Radi-
cals had secured a majority in the recent elections, that the
former would not have become a part of the administration.
France had also been mentioned by some of the speakers,
since Jaures and his wing of the French Party had at one time
favored the policy of supporting a progressive capitalist
government. But Bebel reminded the Congress that Jaures
had expressly declared that he had not been persuaded to
vote against the budget by the resolution to that effect passed
at the International Congress of Amsterdam, but that, after a
long hesitation, he did it "out of his own free conviction."

Bebel did not hesitate to condemn roundly those who were
responsible for this latest effort to lead the party to abandon
its principles. He did not deny that a majority of the or-
ganization in Baden and also in Hesse agreed with its rep-
resentatives. But he attributed this partly to the fact that
the revisionists controlled the Baden party newspapers, which
he accused of being partisan and of not giving full information,
and partly to the regrettable influence of "leaders." Similar
conditions occur internationally, and Bebel's words, like so
much that was said and done at this Congress, have the
highest international significance.

"The peoples cannot at all grasp why one still supports
a government which one would prefer to set aside to-day rather
than to-morrow," he said. "A part of our leaders no longer
understand, and no longer know what the masses have to suffer.
You have estranged yourselves too much from the masses.

"Formerly it was said that the consuls should take care that
the state suffers no harm. To-day one must say, let the masses
take care that the leaders prepare no harm. Democratic distrust
against everybody, even against me, is necessary. Attend to
your editors." These expressions, like the others I have
quoted, received the greatest applause from the Congress.

It was almost unanimously agreed that, although the
Socialist members of the Baden legislature had acted against •

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 261

the decision of the previous Nuremburg Congress, it was
neither wise nor necessary to proceed so far as expulsion, and
Bebel especially was in favor of acting as leniently as possible,
but this does not mean that he found the slightest excuse for
the minority or that he failed to let them understand that he
would fight them to the end, if they did not yield in the future
to the radical majority.

"If a few among us should be mad enough," he said, "to think
of a split, I know it is not coming. The masses will have nothing
to do with it, and if a small body should follow, it would not take
three months until we would have them again in our armies. Our
friends in South Germany who are against our resolution ought to
ask themselves if, since the Nuremburg Congress, there has not
appeared a noteworthy reversal of sentiment. Now to-day North
Bavaria is thoroughly against the granting of the budget. Nurem-
burg is decidedly against it. Stuttgarters and others who spoke
at that time occupied an entirely different standpoint to-day. The
Hessian minority against the granting of the budget was never as
strong as it is to-day. In Hanover voices are to be heard which
expressed themselves very differently before, but are now also
against it. If anybody thinks that he can easily escape from all
these phenomena, then he is mightily mistaken. I guarantee that I
could draw out quite another sentiment in Baden." "Try once !"
it was called out from the audience, and Bebel answered : "Yes, we
are ready to do this if we must. The proletarians of Baden would
have to be no proletarians at all if it were otherwise."

The principal resolution on the question, signed by a large
minority of the Congress, proposed that any persons who
voted for a budget by that very act automatically "stood
outside the party." Bebel said that this was not the cus-
tomary method of the organization, and pointed out that no
means were provided in the constitution of the party for
throwing out a whole group, that the constitution had been
drawn up only for individuals, and provided that any one to be
expelled should receive a very thorough trial. As opposed
to this resolution, he offered a report in the name of the ex-
ecutive committee of the party, which stated, however, that
there was no fundamental difference of opinion between the
executive and the signers of the resolution above mentioned,
but only a difference as to method.

This report declared : " We are of the opinion that in case
the resolution of the party executive is passed, and notwith-
standing this the resolution is not respected, that then the
conditions are present for a trial for exclusion according to

262 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Article 23 of the oganization statutes." This article says :
"No one can belong to the party who is guilty of gross mis-
conduct against the party program or of a dishonorable
action. Exclusion of a member may also take place if his
persistent acts against the resolutions of his party organiza-
tion or of the party congress damage the interests of the party."

The passage of Bebel's resolution, by a vote of 289 to 80,
was an emphatic repudiation of reformism. In the minor-
ity, besides the South Germans, were to be found a consider-
able proportion of the delegates from a very few of the
many important cities of North Germany, namely, Hanover,
Dresden, Breslau, and Magdeburg, together with an insignifi-
cant minority from Berlin and Hamburg.

The South Germans claimed to be fairly well satisfied
with the somewhat conciliatory resolution of Bebel in spite
of his strong talk. But, as has been the case for many years,
they were very aggressive and, in closing the debate, Frank
made some declarations which brought the Congress to take
even a stronger stand than Bebel had proposed.

"To-day I say to you in the name of the South Germans," said
Frank, "that we have the very greatest interest in union and har-
mony in the party. We will do our duty in this direction, but no
one of us can declare to you to-day what will happen in the budget
votings of the next few years. That is a question of conditions."
This remark caused a great disturbance and was taken by the ma-
jority as a defiance and a warning that the South Germans intended
to support capitalistic governments in the future. In fact, other
remarks by Frank left no doubt of this. "In Nuremburg," he said
"we rested our case on the contents of certain points of the budget,
namely, the increase of the wages of laborers, and the salaries of
officials. This time we gave the political situation as a ground.
These are, as Bebel will concede, different things." . . . Frank
went on to say that he and his associates would obey the resolution
of the Congress not to vote for the budget under the particular condi-
tions proscribed at Nuremburg or at Magdeburg. "But," he said,
"do you believe that there ever exists a situation in the world which
is exactly like another ? Do you believe that a budget vote to-day
must absolutely be like a budget vote two years from now?"

That is to say, Frank openly and defiantly announced
that the South Germans might easily find some new reason
for doing what they wanted to do in the future, in spite of
the clear will of the Congress.

A new resolution was then brought in by the majority
to this effect : "In view of the declaration of Comrade Frank

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 263

in his conclusion that he and his friends must take exception
to the position taken in the resolution of the Congress, we
move that the following sentence from the declaration of
Comrade Bebel in support of the motion of the party execu-
tive should be raised to the position of a resolution ; namely,
' We are of the opinion that in case the resolution of the party
executive is passed, and notwithstanding the resolution is
disrespected, that then the conditions are present for a trial
for exclusion according to article 23 of the organization
statutes.' "

When this motion was put, Frank and the South Germans
left the room, and it was carried by 228 to 64, the minority
this time consisting mostly of North Germans. This vote
showed the very highest number that could be obtained from
other sections to sympathize with the South Germans ; for
the resolution in its finally accepted form was certainly a
very sharp one, and Richard Fisher, a member of the Reich-
stag from Berlin, and others for the first time took a stand
with the minority. It is doubtful, however, whether the
total support the South Germans secured at any and all
points together with their own numbers reached as high a
figure as 120 or one third of the Congress. In the matter
of their right openly to disobey the majority, the Baden Party
could not even secure this vote, but was only able to bring
together against the majority (consisting of 301) seventy-
one delegates, nearly all South Germans.

It appears, then, that the overwhelming majority of the
German Party is unalterably opposed to "reformism,"
"revisionism," opportunism, compromise, or any policy
other than that of revolutionary Socialism. For not only the
question of supporting capitalist governments, but all similar
policies, were condemned by these decisive majorities.

How much this means may be gathered from the fact that
"revisionists" as the "reformists" are called in Germany,
practically propose that the Socialist Party should resolve
itself for an indefinite period into an ordinary democratic
reform party in close alliance with other non-Socialist parties.

"The weightiest step on the road to power," wrote the
revisionist Maurenbrecher, "is that we should succeed in
the coming Reichstag in shaping the Liberal and Social-
Democratic majority (formed) for defense against the con-
servatives, into a positive and effective working majority."
In discussing the support of the budget by the Social-Demo-

264 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

crats of Baden, Quessel explained definitely what kind of
positive and effective work such an alliance would be expected
to undertake; namely, "To fight personal government [of
the Kaiser], to protect earnestly the interest of the consumers
against the exploiting agrarian politicians, to undertake lim-
itations of armaments on the basis of international treaties,
to introduce a new division of the election districts [which
has not been done since 1871], and to bring about a legal
limitation of the hours of labor to ten at the most."
Already the radical parties now united, favor all these
measures except the limitation of armaments, which from the
analogy with peace movements in other countries, and cer-
tain indications even in Germany, they may favor within
a very few years. Quessel's program is that of the non-
Socialist reformers, and a step, not towards Socialism, but
towards collectivist capitalism.

Karl Kautsky has dealt with the immediate bearing in
German Socialism of what he calls "the Baden rebellion,"
at some length, in answer to Maurenbrecher, Quessel, and
others. (4) "The idea of an alliance from Bassermann
[the National Liberal leader] to Bebel appears at the first
glance to be quite reasonable," he writes, for "divided we
are nothing, united we are a power. And the immediate
interest of the Liberals and of the Social-Democrats is the
same : ' the transformation of Germany from a bureaucratic
feudal state into a constitutional, parliamentary, Liberal,
and industrial State.' " Kautsky, however, combats the
proposed alliance, from the standpoint of the Social-
Democratic Party, along three different lines. First, he
shows that the purposes of the Liberals in entering into
such a combination are entirely at variance with those of the
Socialists; second, that the Liberals are discredited before
the German people and are not likely to have the principle
or the capacity even to obtain those limited reforms which
they have set on their program, and, third, that even if the
two former reasons did not hold, the Socialists would necessa-
rily have everything to lose by such common action.

The second argument seems to prove too much. Kautsky
reasons that neither the Radical not the Liberal parties can
be relied upon even to carry out their own platforms : -

'The masses now trust the Social Democracy exclusively because
it is the only party which stands in irreconcilable hostility to the

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 265

reigning regime, which does not treat with it, which does not sell
principles for offices ; the only one which swings into the field ener-
getically against militarism, personal government, the three-class
election system, the hunger tyranny [the protective tariff]. On this
depends the tremendous efficiency which our party has to-day. On
this depends the great results which it promises us. ... The whole
effect of the Great Alliance policy [the proposed alliance of Socialists
with the Radicals and National Liberals], if ever it became possible
in the nation, at the best would be this : that we would serve to the
Liberals as the step on which they would climb up into the govern-
ment crib, in order to continue the same reactionary policies which
are now being carried on, with a few unimportant variations : im-
perialism, the naval policy, increase of the army, the increase of
officials, the continuation of the protective tariff policy, and the
postponement of Prussian electoral reforms."

But if the Liberals and Radicals refuse to carry out their
own pledges, the conclusion would seem to be, not Kautsky's
revolutionary one, but that the Socialists, far from stopping
with a mere alliance, must take up the Liberals' or the
Radicals' functions, as the "reformists" desire. However,
there are strong grounds for believing that the Liberals in
Germany will at last rise to the level of their own opportu-
nities, as they have done in other countries. Already, the
last Reichstag passed a resolution demanding that the Kaiser
should be held responsible to that body, which means an end
to personal rule ; already the Radicals are in favor of Prussian
electoral reform, and would undertake sweeping, if not satis-
factory, changes in the tariff; and already the agitation
against militarism is sincere and profound among those power-
ful elements of the capitalists whose interests are damaged by
it, as well as among the "new middle-class." If the present
tendencies continue, why may not the Radicals go farther ?
Is it not probable even that the Reichstag election districts
will be equalized, and possible that equal suffrage in Prussia
will be established by their support? For if the Radicals
recognized, like those of other countries, that equal suffrage
would render the reforms of capitalist collectivism feasible,
they could considerably increase their vote by means of these
reforms and hold the balance of power for a considerable
period; the Socialists would be far from a majority, as they
would thus lose those supporters who have voted with them
solely because for the moment the Socialists were advancing
the Radical program more effectively than the Radicals.

266 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The chief Socialist argument against any political alliance
with capitalist parties is, however, of a more general character.
Referring to the elections of 1912, Kautsky said : —

"How far they will bring us an increase in seats cannot be deter-
mined to-day. . . . But an increase of votes is certain — if we
remain what we have been, the deadly enemy of the existing social
and political condition, which is oppressing the masses more cruelly
all the time, and for the overthrow of which they are all the time
more ardently longing. If, on the other hand, we go into the electoral
struggle arm in arm with the Freethinkers (Radicals) or even with
the National Liberals, if we make ourselves their accomplices, if we
declare ourselves ready for the same miserable behavior which the
Freethinkers made themselves guilty of by entering into an alliance
with von Buelow, we may disillusion the masses ; we may push them
from us and kill political life. If the Social Democracy ceases to be
an opposition party, if even this party is ready to betray its friends
as soon as it becomes by such means "capable of governing," those
who are oppressed by present-day conditions will lose all confidence
in progress by political struggle ; then we shall be sowing on the one
side the seeds of political indifference and on the other those of an
anarchistical labor unionism." (Italics mine.) (4)

Here is the generally accepted reason for the Socialist's
radical attitude. In most countries Socialists are unwilling
to make themselves accomplices in what they consider to
be the political crimes of all existing governments. Especially
do they feel that no reform to which the capitalists would
conceivably consent would justify any alliance. The inevit-
able logic of Kautsky 's own position is that, even if the liberals
in Germany and elsewhere do undertake a broad program of
reform, including all those Kautsky mentions as improbable,
no sufficient ground for an alliance is at hand.

Kautsky himself now admits that there seems to be a re-
vival of genuine capitalistic Liberalism in Germany, which
may lead the Liberal parties to become more and more
radical and even ultimately to democratize that country —
with the powerful aid, of course, of the Social-Democrats.
Evidence of this possibility he saw both in the support given
by Liberals of all shades -to Socialist candidates in many of
the second ballots (in the election of 1912) and the fact that
Bebel secured the overwhelming majority of Liberal votes as
temporary President, while another revolutionary Socialist,
Scheidemann, was actually elected by their aid as first tem-
porary Vice President of the Reichstag.

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 267

Kautsky asserts cautiously that this denotes a possible
revolution in German Liberalism. He again mentions Im-
perialism as the great issue that forbids even temporary co-
operation between Socialists and the most advanced of the
Radicals. But he admits that the rapid development of
China and other Eastern countries will probably check the
profits to be made by Europe and America from their eco-
nomic development. And after Imperialism1 begins to wane
in popularity among certain of the middle classes, i.e. the
salaried and professional classes, he thinks the latter may
turn to genuine democratic, though capitalistic, Liberalism.

He reaches this conclusion with some hesitation, however.
These new middle classes differ fundamentally from the older
middle classes, which were composed chiefly of small farmers,
shopkeepers, and artisans. The old middle classes, when
they found themselves in a hopeless position, have often
joined with the proletariat to bring about revolutions, only
to betray it, however, after they had won. The new middle
class is most dependent on the large capitalists for favor
and promotion, and so is not in the least revolutionary. It
does not care to fight with the proletariat until the latter be-
comes very strong, but when victory seems possible, by a
concerted action will be ready, because of its lack of prop-
erty, to stand steadfastly for Socialism.

The question remains as to when such a Socialist victory
will be imminent. Kautsky holds that as soon as Impe-
rialism fails as a propaganda, the ground is ready for Socialism
to flourish, and that the new middle class then divides into
two parts, one of which remains reactionary, while the other
becomes Socialistic (Berliner Vorwaerts, February 25, 1912).

I have shown that after Imperialism, on the contrary, we
may expect a temporarily successful Liberal policy based on
capitalistic collectivism, and even on complete political de-
mocracy, where the small farmers are sufficiently numerous.
This view would accord with the latest opinion of Kautsky,
except that he expects the new policy to be supported chiefly
by the salaried and professional classes. I have proved, on
the contrary, that it is to the economic interest also of all
those capitalists, whether large or small, who are deeply
rooted in the capitalist system and therefore want its evolu-
tion to continue. In favor of " State Socialism," therefore,
will be found most active trust magnates, the prosperous
middle and upper groups of farmers, and those remaining

268 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

capitalists who either through their economic or through
their political position have no cause to be alarmed at the
present concentration of capital. Against the collectivist
tendency will be all those capitalists who want to compete
with trusts, city landlords, and real estate dealers, and finan-
cial magnates whose power consists largely in their control
over the wealth of inactive large capitalists or small in-
vestors.

Kautsky has begun to see that a progressive capitalistic
policy may take hold of the professional and salaried classes
in Germany ; he would probably not deny that in many
other countries it is being taken up by certain groups of
capitalists also, and that this same tendency may soon be
seen in Germany. And when it is, the German Socialists
will obviously be less anxious about the fate of much-needed
reforms, will find themselves able more frequently to trust
these reforms to capitalistic progressives, and will give them-
selves over more largely than ever to the direct preparation
of the masses for the overthrow of capitalist government.

That is to say, the Socialist movement, like all the other
forces of individual and social life, becomes more aggressive
as it becomes stronger — and it is, indeed, inexplicable how
the opposite view has spread among its opponents.

Not only does it seem that the German movement is
showing little or no tendency to relax the radical nature of
its demands, but it does not appear that its enemies are, for
the present at least, to be given the satisfaction of seeing
even a minority split off from the main body. That a split
may occur in the future is not improbable, but if the move-
ment continues to grow as it has grown, it can afford to lose
many minorities, just as it has suffered comparatively little
damage from the desertion of several prominent individual
figures.

It is true that the division of opinion in the Party might
now be sharper but for the artificial unity created by the great
fight for a more democratic form of government that lies
immediately ahead. If the needed reforms are granted with-
out any very revolutionary proceedings on the part of the
Socialists, as similar reforms were granted in Austria, the
Party might then conceivably divide into two parts, in
which case it is probable that a majority of the four million
Socialist voters might go with the anti-revolutionist and reform
wing, but it is equally probable that a large majority of the

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 269

Party members — now nearly a million (including women) —
would go with the revolutionists. In case of a split, the re-
form wing of the party, already in the friendliest relations
with the non-Socialist radicals, would doubtless join with
them to constitute a very powerful, semidemocratic party,
similar to the Radicals and Labourites of Great Britain or
the so-called "Socialist Radicals" and " Independent Social-
ists/' who dominate the Parliament of France. Besides a
difference in ideals, which counts for little in practical poli-
tics, — for nothing, in the extremely opportunist policies
of the "reformists," — the only difference of importance
between them is in their attitude towards militarism and
war. If peace is firmly established with France, it is diffi-
cult to see what can keep the reformers and the "reformists"
of Germany much longer apart.

A more or less "State Socialistic" Party, such as would re-
sult from this fusion would, of course, involve concessions
by both sides. While the non-Socialist "reformers" would
have to adopt a more aggressive attitude in their fight for
a certain measure of democracy and against militarism, and
would have to be ready to defend the rights of the more con-
servative labor unions, the "reformists" would have to take
up a still more active interest in colonies and still further
their republicanism. Many of them have already gone far
in these directions. Colonialism even had the upper hand
among the Germans at the' Stuttgart Congress (1907) ; and
the tendency of the South Germans to break the Socialist
tradition and tacitly to accept monarchy by participation
in court functions is one of the most common causes of
recrimination in the German Party. It is difficult, then, to
see how these two movements can long keep apart. The
only question is whether, when the time comes, individuals
or minorities will leave the Socialist Party for this purpose,
or whether in some of the States the Party organization will
be captured as a whole, leaving only a minority to form a
new Socialist Party.

"It is a well-known fact," says W. C. Dreher, expressing the
prevalent view of the German movement, "that, for some years,
many voters have been helping those who by no means subscribe
to the Socialists' creed, — doing so as the most effective means of
protecting against the general policy of the government. It is
equally certain that a large part of the regular Socialist member-
ship is composed of discontented men who have but a lukewarm

270 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

interest in collectivism, or believe that it can never be realized. . . .
If a change should come over Germany, if Prussia should get rid
of its plutocratic suffrage reform and give real ballot reform, if the
protective duties should be reduced in the interest of the poorest
class of consumers, — it may be safely assumed that the tide of
Socialism would soon begin to ebb." (6)

If Mr. Dreher had added the reduction of military burdens to
tariff reform and equal Reichstag election districts, an extended
suffrage for Prussia, and a responsible ministry, there would have
been at least this truth in his statement — that if all these things
were accomplished, the tide of Socialist votes would for the moment
be checked. His interpretation of the situation, however, is typi-
cal of the illogical statements now so commonly made concerning
the growth of the German movement. That political tide which
is wrongly assumed to be wholly Socialist would indeed be suddenly
and greatly checked; but there is no reason to suppose that the
Socialist tide proper, as indicated by growth of the Socialist Party
membership, would be checked, nor that the Socialist vote even,
after having been purified of the accidental accretions, which are
its greatest hindrance, would rise less rapidly than before.

The German Socialist situation is important internation-
ally for the decisive defeat of the "revisionists," and for the
light it throws on party unity, but it is still more important
for the means that have been adopted for preserving that
unity. If Socialist parties are to reconstruct society, they
must first control their own members in all matters of com-
mon concern, especially those who are elected to public office.
For before a new society can arise against the resistance of
the old, the Socialist parties, according to the prevailing
Socialist view, must form a "State within a State."

This principle is soon to be put to a severe test in the United
States. The policy which says that the Socialist movement
must be directed by organized Socialists, who can be taxed,
called on for labor, or expelled by the Party, and not by mere
voters, over whom the Party has no control, becomes of the
first moment when forms and methods of organization are
prescribed for all parties by law. By the primary laws of a
number of States, anybody who for any reason has voted for
Socialist candidates may henceforth have a voice not only
in selecting candidates, but in forming the party organiza-
tion, and in constructing its platform. In some States even,
any citizen may vote at any primary he pleases. This makes
it possible for capitalist politicians to direct or disrupt the
Socialist Party at any moment, until the time arrives when

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 271

it has secured a majority or a very large part of the elector-
ate, not only as Socialist voters, but as members of the Social-
ist organization. As Socialists do not expect this to happen
for some years to come, or until the social revolution is at
hand, it is evident that this new legislation may destroy
Socialist parties as they have been, and necessitate the
direction of Socialist politics by leagues or political committees
of Socialist labor unions — while the present Socialist parties
become Populist or Labor parties of the Australian type.
This might create a revolution for the better in that it would free
the new Socialist organization from office seeking and other
forms of political corruption. But it would at the same time
mark the complete abandonment of the present Socialist
method, i.e. the strict control of all persons elected to office
by an independent organization which in turn controls its
conditions of admission to membership.

One of the most widely circulated of the leaflets issued from
the national headquarters of the American Socialist Party,
entitled "Socialist Methods" appeals for public support
largely on the ground that "in nominating candidates for
public offices the Socialists require the nominee to sign a
resignation of the office with blank date, which is placed in
the hands of the local organization to be dated and presented
to the proper officer in case the candidate be elected and
fails to adhere to the platform, constitution, or mandates of
the membership."

The newer primary laws taken in connection with the
recall, as practiced in many American cities and several
States, threaten this most valuable of all Socialist methods
and may even undermine the Socialist Party as at present
organized. The initiative in this process of disruption comes,
of course, from Socialist officeholders who owe either then*
nomination or their election or both, in part at least, to
declared non-Socialists, and still more largely to voters who
only partially or occasionally support the Socialist Party
and have no connection with the organization.

Thus, Mayor Stitt Wilson of Berkeley, California, has
refused to comply with this custom of executing an undated
resignation from office in advance of election, and the local
organization has defended his action on the ground that the
"Berkeley municipal charter, providing as it does for the
initiative, referendum, and recall, there is no necessity for
any official placing his resignation in the hands of the local,"

272 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ignoring the fact that a handful of the least Socialistic of those
who had voted for Mr. Wilson in cooperation with his oppo-
nents could defeat a recall unanimously indorsed by the
Socialist Party. According to this principle a mere majority
in the Socialist Party would be helpless against a mayor
who is allowed to make his appeal to the far more numerous
non-Socialist and anti-Socialist public.

As the custom of requiring signed resignations, by which
alone the Socialist Party controls its members in public
office, is not yet prescribed by the Party constitution, local
and state organizations have a large measure of autonomy,
and the Berkeley case was dropped until the next national
convention (1912). But the action taken by the Socialists
of Lima, Ohio, indicates that the Party will not allow itself
to be destroyed in this manner. Mayor Shook, by his
appointment to office of non-Socialists, and even of a promi-
nent anti-Socialist, caused the local that elected him to present
his signed resignation to the city council, which the latter
body ignored at the mayor's request. The mayor was
promptly expelled from the Party, and the Socialists of the
country have almost unanimously approved the expulsion. (7)

The comment of the New York Call on this incident
undoubtedly reflects the feeling of the majority of the Socialist
Party: —

"Owing to the multiplicity of elections we must go through,
owing to the peculiar division and subdivision of the administra-
tive authority in this country, this is a thing we shall have to face
with accumulating frequency. But that the Socialist Party is
sound on the theories of what it is after, and on its own rights as an or-
ganization, are both demonstrated by the action taken by Local Lima.
The members permanently expelled the traitor. Now let him go
ahead and do what he can, personally gain what he can. He does
it as a non-Socialist, as a man who is held up to contempt by every
decent party member, and is probably held in the most absolute
contempt by those who were able to seduce him with such ease.

"At the present state of our development, it is easy for a plausible
adventurer to take advantage of the Socialist movement and to use
it to a certain point. Where such an adventurer falls down never
to rise again, is when he tries ' to deliver the goods ' to those whom
he serves. . . .

"That he did not possess even rudimentary honesty is shown
by the fact that he prevented his letter of resignation from being
received by the City Council. This manner of resignation is not
and never has been with the Socialists a mere formality. It is a

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 273

vital, necessary thing, and should be insisted upon at all times and in
all places. No man should go on the ticket unless he has signed the
resignation, and no man, unless he is a scoundrel, will sign it unless
he intends to live up to it.

"There may be other Shocks in the party, but they should be
searched out before nominations, instead of being permitted to
reveal themselves after nomination." (8)

"The Socialist Party must conform to the conditions im-
posed upon other parties," says Mr. J. R. MacDonald in
agreement with Mr. Wilson's position. (9) On the contrary,
no Socialist Party could possibly survive such an attitude.
It is only the refusal to conform that assures their continued
existence.

There is no possibility that the Socialist parties of Conti-
nental Europe would for a moment allow the State to prescribe
their form of organization. Kautsky thus describes the
German and the French methods of control : —

" A class is only sure that its interests in Parliament will always
be furthered by its representatives in the most decisive and for the
time being most effective manner, if it is not content with electing
them to Parliament, but always oversees and directs their Parlia-
mentary activities."

Kautsky illustrates this principle of controlling elected
persons by referring to the methods of labor unions, and
proceeds: —

"The same mass action, the same discipline, the same 'tyranny'
which characterize the economic organizations of labor is also
suitable to labor parties, and this discipline applies not only to the
masses, it also applies to those who represent them before the public,
to its leaders. No one of these, no matter in what position he may
be, can undertake any kind of political action against the will or even
without the consent of his comrades. The Social Democratic repre-
sentative is no free man in this capacity, as burdensome as that may
sound, but the delegate of his party. If his views come into conflict
with theirs, then he must cease to be their representative.

"The present-day Member of Parliament ... is not the dele-
gate of his election district, but, as a matter of fact, if not legally,
the delegate of his party. But this is not true of any party to such
an extent as it is of the Social Democracy. And while the party
discipline of the bourgeois parties is, in truth, the discipline of a small
clique which stands above the separated masses of voters, with
the Social Democracy it is the discipline of an organization which
embraces the whole mass of the aggressive and intelligent part of the

274 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

proletariat, and which is stretching itself more and more to embrace
the whole of the working class." (My italics.) (10)

In the introduction to the same booklet, Kautsky sums up
for us in a few words the methods in use in France : —

"Our French comrades have created for the solution of this diffi-
culty a body between the Party Congress and the Party Executive
like our Committee of Control, but different from the latter in
that it counts more members who are elected not by the Congress,
but directly by the comrades of the various districts which they
represent. A right to elect five members to the Party Congress gives
the right to elect one member to the National Council.

"The National Council elects from the twenty-two members of
the permanent Executive Committee the five party secretaries, whose
functions are paid. It conducts the general propaganda, oversees
the execution of party decisions, prepares for the Congresses, over-
sees the party press and the group in Parliament, and has the right
to undertake all measures which the situation at the moment
demands." (11)

We see that the Socialist members of the national legis-
latures, both in Germany and France, are under the most
rigid control, and we cannot doubt that if such control
becomes impossible on account of legislation enacted by
hostile governments, an entirely new form of organiza-
tion will be devised by which the members of the Socialist
Party can regain this power. Either this will be done, or
the "Socialist" Party which continues to exist in a form
dictated by its enemies, will be Socialist in name only, and
Socialists will reorganize — probably along the lines I have
suggested.

It would seem, then, that neither by an attack from without
or from within is the revolutionary character of Socialism
or the essential unity of the Socialist organization to be de-
stroyed.

The departure from the Party of individuals or factions
that had not recognized its true nature, and were only there
by some misunderstanding or by local or temporary circum-
stances is a necessary part of the process of growth. On the
contrary, the Party is damaged only in case these individuals
and factions remain in the organization and become a major-
ity. The failure of those who represent the Party's funda-
mental principles to maintain control, might easily prove
fatal ; with the subordination of its principles the movement
would disintegrate from within. In fact, the possibility of

THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 275

the deliberate wrecking of the Party in such circumstances,
by enemies within its own ranks, has been pointed out and
greatly feared by Liebknecht and other representative Social-
ists. This tendency, however, seems to be subsiding in
those countries in which the movement is most highly de-
veloped, such as Germany and France.

PART III
SOCIALISM IN ACTION

CHAPTER I
SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE"

SOCIALISTS have always taught that Socialism can develop
only out of the full maturity of capitalism, and so favor the
normal advance of capitalist industry and government and
the reforms of capitalist collectivism — on their constructive
side. But if capitalism in its highest form of "State Social-
ism" is the only foundation upon which the Socialism can
be built, it is at the same time that form of capitalism which
will prevail when Socialism reaches maturity and is ready for
decisive action ; and it is, therefore, the very enemy against
which the Socialist hosts will have been drilled and the So-
cialist tactics evolved.

The older capitalism, which professed to oppose all indus-
trial activities of the government, must disappear, but it is
not the object of attack, for the capitalists themselves will
abandon it without Socialist intervention in any form.
Socialists have urged on this evolution from the older to the
newer capitalism by taking the field against the reactionaries,
but they do not, as a rule, claim that by this action they are
doing any more for Socialism than they are for progressive
capitalism.

Socialism can only do what capitalism, after it has reached
its culmination in State capitalism, leaves undone; namely,
to take effective measures to establish equal opportunity
and abolish class government. To accomplish this, Socialists
realize they must reckon with the resistance of every element
of society that enjoys superior opportunities or profits from
capitalist government, and they must know just which these
elements are. It must be decided which of the non-privileged
classes are to be ^permanently relied upon in the fight for
this great change," to what point each will be ready to go,

276

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE "„ 277

and of what effective action it is capable. Next, the classes
upon which it is decided to rely must be brought together
and organized. And, finally, the individual members of these
classes must be developed, by education and social struggles,
until they are able to overcome the resistance of the classes
now in control of industry and government.

The popular conviction that the very existence of social
classes is in complete contradiction with the principles of
democracy, no amount of contrary teaching has been able
to blot out. What has not been so clearly seen is the active
and constant resistance of the privileged classes to popular
government and industrial democracy, i.e the class struggle.

"We have long rested comfortably in this country on the
assumption," says Senator La Follette, "that because our
form of government was democratic, it was therefore auto-
matically producing democratic results. Now there is noth-
ing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of demo-
cratic institutions that should make them self-operative.
Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic
forms as under any other. We are slowly realizing that
democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle." (1)

Senator La Follette fails only to note that this struggle
to make democracy a reality is not a struggle in the heart of
the individual, but between groups of individuals, that these
groups are not formed by differences of temperament or
opinion, but by economic interests, and that nearly every
group falls into one of two great classes, those whose interests
are with and those whose interests are against the capital-
ists and capitalist government.

Why is the sinister role of the upper classes not univer-
sally grasped ? Because the ideas and teachings of former
generations still survive, however much contradicted by
present developments. At the time of the American and
French Revolutions and for nearly a century afterwards,
when political democracy was first securing a world-wide
acceptance as an ideal, it was looked upon as a creed which
had only to be mentally accepted in order to be forthwith
applied to life. The only forces of resistance were thought
to be due to the ignorance or possibly to the unregenerate
moral character of the unconverted. The democratic faith
was accepted and propagated by the French and others
almost exactly as religion had been. As late as the middle
of the last century this conception of democracy, due to the

278 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

wide diffusion of small and in many localities approximately
equal farms and small businesses, continued to prevail.

About the middle of the nineteenth century the first ad-
vance was made. It became recognized with the coming of
railroads and steamships that society could never become
fixed as a Utopia or in any other form, but must always be
subject to change, — and the ideal of social evolution gained
a considerable acceptance even before the evolution theory
had been generally applied to biology. It was seen that if
the ideal of democracy was to become a reality, a certain degree
of intellectual and material development was required, — but
it was thought that this development was at hand. It was
a period when wealth was rapidly becoming more equally
distributed, when plenty of free land remained, and when it
was commonly supposed that universal free trade and uni-
versal peace were about to dawn upon the nations, and equal
opportunity, if not yet achieved, was not far away. The
obstacles in the way of progress were not the resistance of
privileged classes, but the time and labor required for man-
kind to conquer the world and nature. With the establish-
ment of so-called democratic and constitutional republics
in the place of monarchies and landlord aristocracies, and the
abolition of slavery in the United States, all systematic
opposition to social progress, except in the minds of a few per-
verted or criminal individuals, was supposed to be at an end.

A generation or two ago, then, though it was now recog-
nized that the golden age could not be attained immediately
by merely converting the majority to a wise and beneficent
social system (as had been proposed in the first half of the
century), yet it was thought that, with the advance of science
and the conquest of nature, and without any serious civil
strife, "equality of opportunity" was being gradually and
rapidly brought to all mankind. This state of mind has
survived and is still that of the majority to-day, when the
conditions that have given rise to it have disappeared.

Not all previous history has a greater economic change to
show than the latter half of the nineteenth century, which
converted all the leading countries from nations of small
capitalists into nations of hired employees. Even such a
far-sighted and broad-minded statesman as Lincoln, for
example, had no idea of the future of his country, and regarded
the slaveowners and their supporters as the only classes that
dreamed that we could ever become a nation of "hired

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE': 279

laborers" (the capitalism of to-day), any more than we could
remain in part a nation of "bought laborers." Lincoln
puts a society based on hired labor in the same class with a
society based on owned labor, on the ground that both lead
to an effort "to place capital on an equal footing, if not above
labor in the structure of the government." This effort,
marked by the proposal of "the abridgment of the existing
right of suffrage and the denial to the people of the right to
participate in the selection of public officers except the legis-
lative" (so similar to tendencies prevailing to-day), he calls
"returning despotism." And so inevitable did it seem to
Lincoln that a nation based on hired labor would evolve a
despotic government, that he fell back on the fact that the
population was composed chiefly not of laborers, but of small
capitalists, and would probably remain so constituted, as
the only convincing ground that our political democracy
would last. In a word, our greatest statesman recognized
that our political democracy and liberty were based on the
wide distribution of the land and other forms of capital.
(See Lincoln's Message of December 3, 1861.) If Lincoln
foresaw no class struggle between "hired labor" and the
"returning despotism," this was only because he mistakenly
expected that the nation would continue to consist chiefly of
small capitalists. Yet his conclusions and those of his con-
temporaries, so clearly limited to conditions that have passed
away, are taught like a gospel to the children in our public
schools to-day.

The present generation, however, is slowly realizing, through
the development of organized capitalism in industry and gov-
ernment, and the increase of hired laborers, that it is not
nature alone that civilization must contend against, not
merely ignorance or poverty or the backwardness of material
development, but, more important than all these, the sys-
tematic opposition of the employing and governing classes
to every program of improvement, except that which promises
still further to increase their own wealth and power.

The Socialist view of the evolution of society is that the
central fact of history is this struggle of classes for political
and economic power. -The governing class of any society or
period, Marx taught, consists of the economic exploiters,
the governed class of the economically exploited. The
governing class becomes more and more firmly established
in power, until it begins to stagnate, but the machinery of

280 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

production continues to evolve, and falls gradually into the
hands of some exploited element which is able to use this
economic advantage as a means for overthrowing its rulers.
Marx felt that with the vast revolution in society marked
by modern science and modern machinery, the time is fast
approaching when the exploited classes of to-day will be able
to overthrow the present ruling class, the capitalists, and at
the same time establish an industrial democracy, where all
class oppression will be brought to an end.

However his predictions may turn out in the future,
Marx's view of the past is rapidly gaining ground and is
possibly accepted by the majority of those most competent
to speak on these questions to-day, including many leading
economists and sociologists and prominent figures in practical
political life. Winston Churchill, for example, says that "the
differences between class and class have been even aggravated
in the passage of years," that while "the richer classes [are]
ever growing in wealth and in numbers, and ever declining
in responsibility, the very poor remain plunged or plunging
even deeper into helpless, hopeless misery." This being the
case, he predicts "a savage strife between class and class,"
unless the most radical measures are taken to check the
tendency. Nor are his statements mere rhetoric, for he
shows statistically "that the increase of income assessable
to income tax is at the very least more than ten times greater
than the increase which has taken place in the same period
in the wages of those trades which come within the Board
of Trade returns." (2) In other words, the income of the
well-to-do classes (which increased nearly half a billion
pounds, that is, almost doubled, in ten years) is growing ten
times more rapidly than that even of the organized and better
paid workmen, who alone are considered in the Board of
Trade returns.

Here is a situation which is world-wide. The position of
the working class, or certain parts of it, may be improving ;
the income of the employing and capitalist class is certainly
increasing many fold more rapidly. Here is the financial
expression of the gorwing divergence of classes which Marx
had in mind, a divergence that we have no reason whatever for
supposing will be checked, as Mr. Churchill suggests, even by
his most "Socialistic" reforms, short of surrendering the polit-
ical and economic power to those who suffer from this condition.

At the German Socialist Congress at Hanover in 1899,

SOCIALISM AND THE ."CLASS STRUGGLE.'.' 281

Bebel said that even if the income of the working class was
increasing, or even if the purchasing power of total wages
was becoming greater, the income of the nation as a whole
was increasing much more rapidly and that of the capitalist
class at a still more rapid rate. The great Socialist statesman
laid emphasis on the essential point that capitalists are
absorbing continually a greater and a greater proportion of
the national income.

The class struggle, says Kautsky, rests not upon the fact
that the misery of the proletariat is growing greater, but on
its need to annihilate a pressure that it feels more and more
keenly.

"The class struggle," he writes, "becomes more bitter the
longer it lasts. The more capable of struggle the opponents
become in and through the struggle itself, the more important
become the differences in their conditions of life, the more the
capitalists raise themselves above the proletariat by the ever
growing exploitation." (3)

This feature of present-day (capitalistic) progress, Social-
ists view as the very essence of social injustice, no matter
whether there is a slight and continuous or even a considerable
progress of the working class. The question for them is not
whether from time to time something more falls to the work-
ingman, but what proportion he gets of the total product.
It would never occur to any one to try to tell a business man
that he ought not to sell any more goods because his profits
were already increasing "fast enough." It is as absurd to
tell the workingman that the moderate advance he is making
either through slight improvements as to wages and hours,
or through political and social reforms, ought to blind him to
all the possibilities of modern civilization from which he is
still shut off, and which will remain out of his reach for genera-
tions, unless his share in the income of society is rapidly
increased to the point that he (and other non-capitalist
producers) receive the total product.

The conflict of class interests is not a mere theory, but a
widely recognized reality, and the worst accusation that can
be made against Socialists is not that they are trying to
create a war of classes where none exists, but that some of
them at times interpret the conflict in a narrow or violent
sense (I shall discuss the truth or untruth of this criticism in
later chapters). Yet Mr. Roosevelt voices the opinion of
many when he calls the view that the maximum of progress

282 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

is to be secured only after a struggle between the classes,
the "most mischievous of Socialist theses," says that an
appeal to class interest is not "legitimate," and that the
Socialists hope "in one shape or another to profit at the ex-
pense of the other citizens of the Republic." (4)

"There is no greater need to-day," said Mr. Roosevelt in
his Sorbonne lecture, "than the need to keep ever in mind
the fact that the cleavage between right and wrong, between
good citizenship and bad citizenship, runs at right angles to,
not parallel to, the lines of cleavage between class and class,
between occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us in the
face if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him
by his conduct in that position."

This is as much as to say that there are only individuals,
but no class, which it is better to have outside than inside of
a progressive majority. The Socialist view is the exact
opposite. It holds that the very foundation of Socialism
as a method (which is its only aspect of practical importance)
is that the Socialist movement assumes a position so militant
and radical that every privileged class will voluntarily remain
on the outside ; and events are showing the wisdom and even
the necessity of these tactics. Socialists would say, "Ruin
looks us in the face if, in politics, we judge the men who occupy
a certain position (the members of a certain class) by their
conduct as individuals, instead of judging them by the fact
that they occupy a certain position and are members of a
certain class."

Again, to the Chamber of Commerce at New Haven, Mr.
Roosevelt expressed a view which, to judge by their actions,
is that of all non-Socialist reformers: "I am a radical," he
said, "who most earnestly desires to see a radical platform
carried out by conservatives. I wish to see great industrial
reforms carried out, not by the men who will profit by them,
but by the men who will lose by them ; by such men as you
are around me."

Socialists, on the contrary, believe that industrial reforms
will never lead to equality of opportunity except when carried
out wholly independently of the conservatives who will lose
by them. They believe that such reforms as are carried out
by the capitalists and their governments, beneficent, radical,
and even stupendous as they may be, will not and cannot
constitute the first or smallest step towards industrial
democracy.

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 283

Mr. Roosevelt's views are identical on this point with those
of Mr. Woodrow Wilson and other progressive leaders of the
opposite party. Mayor Gaynor of New York, for example,
was quoted explaining the great changes that took place in
the fall elections of 1910 on these grounds : "We are emerging
from an evil case. The flocking of nearly all the business
men, owners of property, and even persons with $100 in the
savings bank, to one party made a division line and created
a contrast which must have led to trouble if much longer
continued. The intelligence of the country is asserting itself,
and business men and property owners will again divide them-
selves normally between the parties, as formerly." Here
again is the fundamental antithesis to the Socialist view.
Leaving aside for the moment the situation of persons with
$100 in the savings bank, or owners of property in general (who
might possess nothing more than a small home), Socialists
are working, with considerable success, towards the day when
at least one great party will take a position so radical that
the overwhelming majority of business men (or at least the
representatives of by far the larger part of business and
capital) will be forced automatically into the opposite or-
ganization.

Without this militant attitude Socialists believe that even
the most radical reforms, not excepting those that sincerely
propose equal opportunity or the abolition of social classes
as their ultimate aim, must fail to carry society forward a
single step in that direction. Take, as an example, Dr. Lyman
Abbott, whose advanced views I have already referred to
(see Part I, Chap. III). Notwithstanding his advocacy of in-
dustrial democracy, his attack on the autocracy of capitalism
and the wages system, and his insistence that the distinction
between non-possessing and possessing classes must be abol-
ished, Dr. Abbott opposes a class struggle. Such phrases
amount to nothing from the Socialist standpoint, if all of these
objects are held up merely as an ideal, and if nothing is said of
the rate at which they ought to be attained or the means by
which the opposition of privileged classes is to be overcome.
No indorsement of any so-called Socialist theory or reform is
of practical moment unless it includes that theory which has
survived out of the struggles of the movement, and has been
tested by hard experience — a theory in which ways and
means are not the last but the first consideration, — namely,
the class struggle.

284 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Mr. Roosevelt and nearly all other popular leaders of the
day denounce "special privilege." But the denouncers of
special privilege, aside from the organized Socialists, are only
too glad to associate themselves with one or another of the
classes that at present possess the economic and political
power. To the Socialists the only way to fight special priv-
ilege is to place the control of society in the hands of a non-
privileged majority. The practical experience of the movement
has taught the truth of what some of its early exponents saw
at the outset, that a majority composed even in part of the
privileged classes could never be trusted or expected to abolish
privileges. Neither Dr. Abbott, Mr. Roosevelt, nor other
opponents of the Socialist movement, are ready to indorse
this practical working theory. For its essence being that all
those who by their economic expressions or their acts stand
for anything less than equality of opportunity should be
removed from positions of power, it is directed against every
anti-Socialist. Dr. Abbott, for example, demands only "op-
portunity," instead of equal opportunity, and Mr. Roosevelt
wishes merely "to start all men in the race for life on a
reasonable equality." (My italics.) (5)

Let us see what Marx and his successors say in explanation
of their belief that the "class struggle" must be fought out
to an end. Certainly they do not mean that each individual
capitalist is to be regarded by his working people as their
private enemy. Nor, on the other hand, can the expression
"class struggle" be interpreted, as some Socialists have
asserted, to mean that there was no flesh and blood enemy
to be attacked, but only "the capitalist system." To
Marx capitalism was embodied not merely in institutions,
which embrace all classes and individuals alike, but also in
the persons of the capitalist class. And by waging a war
against that class he meant to include each and every mem-
ber of it who remained in his class, and every one of its sup-
porters. To Marx the enemy was no abstraction. It was,
as he said, "the person, the living individual" that had to be
contended with, but only as the embodiment of a class. "It
is not sufficient," he said, "to fight the general conditions and
the higher powers. The press must make up its mind to
oppose this constable, this attorney, this councilor." (6)
These individuals, moreover, he viewed not merely as the
servants or representatives of a system, but as part and parcel
of a class.

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE'.' 285

The struggle that Marx had in mind might be called a
latent civil war. It was not a mere preparation for revolution,
since it was as real and serious in times of peace as in those
of revolution or civil war. But it was a civil war in every-
thing except the actual physical fighting, and he was al-
ways ready to proceed to actual fighting when necessary.
Throughout his life Marx was a revolutionist. And when his
successors to-day speak of "the class struggle," they mean a
conflict of that depth and intensity that it may lead to rev-
olution.

None of the classical Socialist writers, however, has failed
to grasp the absolute necessity to a successful social move-
ment, and especially to a revolutionary one, of making the
class struggle broad, inclusive, and democratic. In 1851
Marx wrote to the Socialists: "The forces opposed to you
have all the advantages of organization, discipline, and habit-
ual authority; unless you bring strong odds against them
you are defeated and ruined." (The italics are mine.)

Edward Bernstein, while representing as a rule only the
ultra-moderate element of the Party, expresses on this ques-
tion the views of the majority as well. "Social Democracy,"
he says, "cannot further its work better than by taking its
stand unreservedly on the theory of democracy." And he
adds that in practice it has always favored cooperation with
all the exploited, even if "its literary advocates have often
acted otherwise, and still often do so to-day."

Not many years ago, it is true, there was still a great deal
of talk in Germany about the desirability of a "dictatorship
of the proletariat," the term " proletariat " being used in its
narrow sense. That is, as soon as the working class (in this
sense) became a political majority, it was to make the gov-
ernment embody its will without reference to other classes —
it being assumed that the manual laborers will only demand
justice for all men alike, and that it was neither safe nor
necessary to consult any of the middle classes. And even
to-day in France much is said by the " syndicalists" and
others as to the power of well-organized and determined
minorities in the time of revolution — it being assumed, again,
that such minorities will be successful only in so far as they
stand for a new social principle, to the ultimate interest of
all (see Chapter V). It cannot be questioned that in these
schemes the majority is not to be consulted. But they

286 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

are far less widely prevalent than they were a generation
ago.

The pioneer of "reformist" Socialism in Germany (Bern-
stein) correctly defines democracy, not as the rule of the
majority, but as "an absence of class government." "This
negative definition has," he says, "the advantage that it gives
less room than the phrase 'government by the people' to the
idea of oppression of the individual by the majority, which is
absolutely repugnant to the modern mind. To-day we find
the oppression of the minority by the majority ' undemocratic/
although it was originally held up to be quite consistent with
government by the people. . . . Democracy is in principle
the suppression of class government, though it is not yet the
actual suppression of classes." (7)

Democracy, as we have hitherto known it, opposes class
government, but countenances the existence of classes.
Socialism insists that as long as social classes exist, class
government will continue. The aim of Socialism, "the end
of class struggles and class rule," is not only democratic, but
the only means of giving democracy any real meaning.

"It is only the proletariat" (wage earners), writes Kautsky,
"that has created a great social ideal, the consummation of
which will leave only one source of income, i.e. labor, will
abolish rent and profit, will put an end to class and other con-
flicts, and put in the place of the class struggle the solidarity
of man. This is the final aim and goal of the class struggle by
the Socialist Party. The political representatives of the class
interests of the proletariat thus become representative of the
highest and most general interests of humanity." (8)

It is expected that nearly all social classes, though separated
into several groups to-day, will ultimately be thrown to-
gether by economic evolution and common interests into two
large groups, the capitalists and their allies on the one side,
and the anti-capitalists on the other. The final and com-
plete victory of the latter, it is believed, can alone put an end
to this great conflict. But in the meanwhile, even before
our capitalist society is overthrown and class divisions ended,
the very fusing together of the several classes that compose
the anti-capitalist party is bringing about a degree of social
harmony not seen before.

Already the Socialists have succeeded in this way in har-
monizing a large number of conflicting class interests. The
skilled workingmen were united for the first time with the

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 287

unskilled when the latter, having been either ignored or sub-
ordinated in the early trade unions, were admitted on equal
terms into the Socialist parties. Then the often extremely
discontented salaried and professional men of small incomes,
having been won by Socialist philosophy, laid aside their
sense of superiority to the wage earners and were absorbed
in large numbers. Later, many agricultural laborers and
even agriculturists who did all their own work, and whose
small capital brought them no return, began to conquer their
suspicion of the city wage workers. And, finally, many of
those small business men and independent farmers, the larger
part of whose income is to be set down as the direct result
of their own labor and not a result of their ownership of
a small capital, or who feel that they are being reduced to
such a condition, are commencing in many instances to look
upon themselves as non-capitalists rather than capitalists —
and to work for equality of opportunity through the Socialist
movement.

The process of building up a truly democratic society has
two parts : first, the organization and union in a single move-
ment of all classes that stand for the abolition of classes, and
class rule ; and second, the overthrow of those social elements
that stand in the way of this natural evolution, their destruc-
tion and dissolution as classes, and the absorption of their
members by the new society as individuals.

It becomes of the utmost importance in such a vast struggle,
on the one hand, that no classes that are needed in the new
society shall be marked for destruction, and on the other that
the movement shall not lean too heavily or exclusively on
classes which have very little or too little constructive or
combative power. What, then, is the leading principle by
which the two groups are to be made up and distinguished ?
Neither the term "capitalist classes" nor the term "working
classes" is entirely clear or entirely satisfactory.

Mr. Roosevelt, for example, gives the common impression
when he accuses the Socialists of using the term "working
class" in the narrow sense and of taking the position that " all
wealth is produced by manual workers, that the entire prod-
uct of labor should be handed over to the laborer." (9)
I shall show that Socialist writers and speakers, even when
they use the expression "working class," almost universally
include others than the manual laborers among those they
expect to make up the anti-capitalistic movement.

288 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Kautsky's definition of the working class, for example, is :
"Workers who are divorced from their power of production
to the extent that they can produce nothing by their own
efforts, and are therefore compelled in order to escape star-
vation to sell the only commodity they possess — their
labor power." In present-day society, especially in a rich
country like America, it is as a rule not sheer "starvation"
that drives, but needs of other kinds that are almost as com-
pelling. But the point I am concerned with now is that this
definition, widely accepted by Socialists, draws no line what-
ever between manual and intellectual workers. In another
place Kautsky refers to the industrial working class as being
the recruiting ground for Socialism, which might seem to be
giving a preferred position to manual workers; but a few
paragraphs below he again qualifies his statement by adding
that "to the working class there belong, just as much as the
wage earners, the members of the new middle class," which I
shall describe below. (10)

In other statements of their position, it is the context
which makes the Socialist meaning clear. The party Plat-
form of Canada, for instance, uses throughout the simple
term " working class," without any explanation, but it speaks
of the struggle as taking place against the "capitalists,"
and as it mentions no other classes, the reader is left to divide
all society between these two, which would evidently make
it necessary to classify many besides mere manual wage
earners rather among the anti-capitalist than among the
capitalist forces.

The platform of the American Socialist Party in 1904
divided the population between the "capitalists," and the
"working or producing class." "Between these two classes,"
says this platform, "there can be no possible compromise . . .
except in the conscious and complete triumph of the working
class as the only class that has the right or power to be."

"By working people," said Liebknecht, "we do not under-
stand merely the manual workers, but every one who does not
live on the labor of another." His words should be memorized
by all those who wish to understand the first principles of
Socialism : —

"Some maintain, it is true, that the wage-earning proletariat is
the only really revolutionary class, that it alone forms the Socialist
army, and that we ought to regard with suspicion all adherents be-
longing to other classes or other conditions of life. Fortunately

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 289

these senseless ideas have never taken hold of the German Social
Democracy.

"The wage-earning class is most directly affected by capitalist
exploitation ; it stands face to face with those who exploit it, and it
has the especial advantage of being concentrated in the factories and
yards, so that it is naturally led to think things out more energet-
ically and finds itself automatically organized into 'battalions of
workers.' This state of things gives it a revolutionary character
which no other part of society has to the same degree. We must
recognize this frankly.

"Every wage earner is either a Socialist already, or he is on the
high road to becoming one.

"We must not limit our conception of the term 'working class'
too narrowly. As we have explained in speeches, tracts, and articles,
we include in the working class all those who live exclusively or
principally by means of their own labor, and who do not grow rich
from the work of others.

"Thus, besides the wage earners, we should include in the work-
ing class the small farmers and small shop keepers, who tend more
and more to drop to the level of the proletariat — in other words,
all those who suffer from our present system of production on a large
scale." (My italics.)

The chief questions now confronting the Socialists are all
connected, directly or indirectly, with these producing middle
classes, who, on the whole, do not live on the labor of others
and suffer from the present system, yet often enjoy some
modest social privilege.

While Liebknecht considered that the wage-earning class
was more revolutionary and Socialistic than any other, he
did not allow this for one moment to persuade him to give a
subordinate position to other classes in the movement, as he
says : —

"The unhappy situation of the small farmers almost all over
Germany is as well known as that of the artisan movement. It is
true that both small farmers and small shopkeepers are still in the
camp of our adversaries, but only because they do not understand
the profound causes that underlie their deplorable condition ; it is of
prime importance for our party to enlighten them and bring them
over to our side. This is the vital question for our party, because
these two classes form the majority of the nation. , . . We ought not
to ask, 'Are you a wage earner?' but, 'Are you a Socialist?'

"If it is limited to the wage earners, Socialism cannot conquer.

If it included all the workers and the moral and intellectual e"lite

of the nation, its victory is certain. . . . Not to contract, but to

expand, ought to be our motto. The circle of Socialism should

u

290 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

widen more and more, until we have converted most of our adversaries
to being our friends, or at least disarm their opposition.

"And the indifferent mass, that in peaceful days has no weight
in the political balance, but becomes the decisive force in times of
agitation, ought to be so fully enlightened as to the aims and the
essential ideas of our party, that it would cease to fear us and can
be no longer used as a weapon against us." (11) (My italics.)

Karl Kautsky, though he takes a less broad view, also
says that the Socialist Party is "the only anti-capitalist
party," (12) and contends in his recent pamphlet, "The Road
to Power, " that its recruiting ground in Germany includes
three fourths of the nation, and probably even more, which
(even in Germany) would include a considerable part of those
ordinarily listed with the middle class,
i Kautsky's is probably the prevailing opinion among Ger-
man Socialists. Let us see how he proposes to compose a
Socialist majority. Of course his first reliance is on the manual
laborers, skilled and unskilled. Next come the professional
classes, the salaried corporation employees, and a large part
of the office workers, which together constitute what Kautsky
and the other Continental Socialists call the new middle class.
"Among these," Kautsky says, "a continually increasing
sympathy for the proletariat is evident, because they have no
special class interest, and owing to their professional, scientific
point of view, are easiest won for our party through scientific
considerations. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois
economics, and the theoretical superiority of Socialism, must
become clear to them. Through their training, also, they must
discover that the other social classes continuously strive to
debase art and science. Many others are impressed by the
fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So
it is that friendship for labor becomes popular among the
cultured classes, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one
does not stumble over one or more 'Socialists.'"

It is difficult to understand how it can be said that these
classes have no special "class interest," unless it is meant
that their interest is neither that of the capitalists nor pre-
cisely that of the industrial wage-earning class. And this,
indeed, is Kautsky's meaning, for he seems to minimize their
value to the Socialists, because as a class they cannot be relied
upon.

"Heretofore, as long as Socialism was branded among all cultured
classes as criminal or insane, capitalist elements could be brought into

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 291

the Socialist movement only by a complete break with the whole
capitalist world. Whoever came into the Socialist movement at
that time from the capitalist element had need of great energy,
revolutionary passion, and strong proletarian convictions. It was
just this element which ordinarily constituted the most radical and
revolutionary wing of the Socialist movement.

"It is wholly different to-day, since Socialism has become a fad.
It no longer demands any special energy, or any break with capital-
ist society to assume the name of Socialist. It is no wonder, then,
that more and more these new Socialists remain entangled in their
previous manner of thought and feeling.

"The fighting tactics of the intellectuals are at any rate wholly
different from those of the proletariat. To wealth and power of
arms the latter opposes its overwhelming numbers and its thorough
organization. The intellectuals are an ever diminishing minority,
with no class organization whatever. Their only weapon is persua-
sion through speaking and writing, the battle with 'intellectual
weapons' and 'moral superiority,' and these 'parlor Socialists'
would settle the proletarian class struggle also with these weapons.
They declare themselves ready to grant the party their moral sup-
port, but only on condition that it renounces the idea of the applica-
tion of force, and this not simply where force is hopeless, — there
the proletariat has already renounced it, — but also in those places
where it is still full of possibilities. Accordingly they seek to throw
discredit on the idea of revolution, and to represent it as a useless
means. They seek to separate off a social reform wing from the
revolutionary proletariat, and they thereby divide and weaken the
proletariat." (13)

In the last words Kautsky refers to the fact that although
a large number of "intellectuals" (meaning the educated
classes) have come into the Socialist Party and remain there,
they constitute a separate wing of the movement. We must
remember, however, that this same wing embraces, besides
these "parlor Socialists," a great many trade unionists, and
that it has composed a very considerable portion of the Ger-
man Party, and a majority in some other countries of the
Continent ; and as Kautsky himself admits that they succeed
in "dividing the proletariat," they cannot be very far re-
moved politically from at least one of the divisions they are
said to have created. It is impossible to attribute the kind
of Socialism to which Kautsky objects to the adhesion of
certain educated classes to the movement (for reasons in-
dicated in Part II).

While many of the present spokesmen of Socialism are,
like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an

292 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

alliance between the working class and this section of the
middle class, others accept it without qualification. If, then,
we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former
group of Socialists, and the very positive and friendly atti-
tude of the latter, it must be concluded that the Socialist
movement as a whole is convinced that its success depends
upon a fusion of at least these two elements, the wage earners
and "the new middle class."

A few quotations from the well-known revolutionary Social-
ist, Anton Pannekoek, will show the contrast between the nar-
rower kind of Socialism, which still survives in many quarters,
and that of the majority of the movement. He discrimi-
nates even against "the new middle class," leaving nobody
but the manual laborers as a fruitful soil for real Socialism.

"To be sure, in the economic sense of the term, then, the new
middle class are proletarians ; but they form a very special group
of wage workers, a group that is so sharply divided from the real
proletarians that they form a special class with a special position
in the class struggle. . . . Immediate need does not compel them
as it does the real proletarians to attack the capitalist system.
Their position may arouse discontent, but that of the workers is
unendurable. For them Socialism has many advantages, for the
workers it is an absolute necessity." (My italics.) (14)

The phrase "absolute necessity" is unintelligible. It is com-
paratively rarely that need arises to the height of actual compulsion,
and when it does instances are certainly just as common among
clerks as they are among bricklayers.

Pannekoek introduces a variety of arguments to sustain his posi-
tion. For instance, that "the higher strata among the new middle
class have a definitely capitalistic character. The lower ones are
more proletarian, but there is no sharp dividing line." This is true
— but the high strata in every class are capitalistic. The statement
applies equally well to railway conductors, to foremen, and to many
classes of manual workers.

"And then, too," Pannekoek continues, "they, the new middle
class, have more to fear from the displeasure of their masters, and
dismissal for them is a much more serious matter. The worker
stands always on the verge of starvation, and so unemployment has
few terrors for him. The high-class employee, on the contrary, has
comparatively an easy life, and a new position is difficult to find."

Now it is precisely the manual laborer who is most often black-
listed by the large corporations and trusts; and the brain-working
employee is better able to adapt himself to some slightly different
employment than is the skilled worker in any of the highly special-
ized trades.

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE '! 293

"For the cause of Socialism we can count on this new middle
class," says Pannekoek, "even less than on the labor unions. For
one thing, they have been set over the workers, as superintendents,
overseers, bosses, etc. In these capacities they are supposed to
speed up the workers to get the utmost out of them."

Is it not even more common, we may ask, that one manual worker
is set over another than that a brain worker is set over a manual
laborer ?

"They [the new middle class] are divided," writes Pannekoek,
"into numberless grades and ranks arranged one above the other;
they dp not meet as comrades, and so cannot develop the spirit of
solidarity. Each individual does not make it a matter of personal
pride to improve the condition of his entire class; the important
thing is rather that he personally struggles up into the next higher
rank."

If we remember the more favorable hours and conditions under
which the brain workers are employed, the fact that they are not so
exhausted physically and that they have education, we may see
that they have perhaps even greater chances "to develop their
solidarity " and to understand their class interests than have the
manual workers. It is true that they are more divided at the pres-
ent time, but there is a tendency throughout all the highly organ-
ized industries to divide the manual laborers in the same way and
to secure more work from them by a similar system of promotions.

Pannekoek accuses the brain workers of having something to
lose, again forgetting that there are innumerable groups of more or
less privileged manual laborers who are in the same position. And
finally, he contends that their superior schooling and education is
a disadvantage when compared to the lack of education of the man-
ual laborers: —

"They have great notions of their own education and refinement,
feel themselves above the masses ; it naturally never occurs to them
that the ideals of these masses may be scientifically correct and that
the 'science' of their professors may be false. As theorizers seeing
the world always with their minds, knowing little or nothing of
material activities, they are fairly convinced that mind controls
the world."

On the contrary, nearly all influential Socialist thinkers agree that
present-day science, poorly as it is taught, is not only an aid to Social-
ism, but the very best basis for it.

Pannekoek is right, for instance, when he says that most of the
brain workers in the Socialist movement come from the circles of the
small capitalists and bring an anti-Socialist prejudice with them,
but he forgets that, on the other side, the overwhelming majority
of the world's working people are the children of farmers, peasants,
or of absolutely unskilled and illiterate workers, whose views of life
were even more prejudiced and whose minds were perhaps even more
filled up with the ideas that the ruling classes have placed there.

294 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

The arguments of the American Socialist, Thomas Sladden,
representing as they do the views of many thousands of rev-
olutionary workingmen in this country, are also worthy of note.
His bitterness, it will be seen, is leveled less against capitalism
itself than against what he considers to be intrusion of .certain
middle-class elements into Socialist ranks.

"We find in the United States to-day," writes Sladden, "that we
have created several new religions, one of the most interesting of
which is called Socialism, and is the religion of a decadent middle
class. This fake Socialism or middle-class religion can readily be
distinguished from the real Socialist movement, which is simply
the wage working class in revolt on both the industrial and polit-
ical fields against presen^, conditions. . . . Yesterday I was a bad
capitalist — to-day I am a good Socialist, but I pay my wage slaves
the same wages to-day as I did yesterday. . . . They never take
the answer of Bernard Shaw, who, when asked by a capitalist what
he could do, saying that he could not help being a capitalist, was
answered in this manner : You can go and crack rock if you want
to; no one forces you to be a capitalist, but you are a capitalist
because you want to be. No one forces Hillquit to be a lawyer;
he could get a job in a lumber yard. There is no more excuse for
a man being a capitalist or a lawyer than there is for him being a
Pinkerton detective. He is either by his own free will and accord.
The system, — they acclaim in one breath, — the system makes us
do what we do not wish to do. The system does nothing of the
kind ; the system gives a man the choice between honest labor and
dishonest labor skinning, and a labor skinner is a labor skinner
because he wishes to be, just the same as some men are pick-
pockets because they wish to be."

It can readily be realized that such arguments will always
have great weight with the embittered elements of the work-
ing class. Nor do the most representative Socialists alto-
gether disagree with Sladden. They, too, feel that if the
war is not levied against individuals, neither is it levied against
a mere abstract system, but against a ruling class. However,
they make exceptions for such capitalists as the late Paul
Singer, who definitely abandon their class and throw in their
lot with the Socialist movement, while Sladden would admit
neither Singer, nor those other millions mentioned by Lieb-
knecht (see above), for he demands that the Socialist Party
must declare that "no one not eligible to the labor unions of
the United States is eligible to the Socialist Party."

The high-water mark of this brand of revolutionism was
reached in the State of Washington, when these revolu-

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 295

tionary elements in the Socialist Party withdrew to form a
new workingmen's party, the chief novelty of which was a
plank dividing the organization into "an active list and an
assistant list, only wage workers being admitted to the active
list." The wage workers were defined as the class of modern
wage laborers who, having no means of production of their
own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.
These are the active list, and they alone hold office and vote.
"The assistant list cannot hold office and cannot vote," and
the Party will "do active organizing work among wage earners
alone." This reminds one very much of the notorious divi-
sion into active and passive citizens at the early stages of
the French Revolution, which gave such a splendid opportu-
nity to the Jacobines to organize a revolt of the passive citi-
zens and was one of the chief causes leading up to the Reign
of Terror and the Napoleonic reaction that followed. The
Washington plan, however, has been a complete failure. It
has had no imitators in the Socialist movement, nor is it
likely to have.

On the other hand, the most influential representatives of the
extreme revolutionary wing of the movement, like nerve" in
France, have championed the non- wage-earning elements of
the movement as fearlessly as the reformists.

"In the ranks of our party," writes Herve"} "are to be found
small merchants, small employers, wretched, impoverished, educated
people, small peasant proprietors, none of whom on account of
occupation can enter into the general Federation of Labor, which
only admits those receiving wages and salaries. These are rev-
olutionary elements which cannot be neglected ; " these volunteers
of the Revolution who have often a beautiful revolutionary tem-
perament would be lost for the Revolution if our political organiza-
tion was not at hand to nourish their . activity. Besides, the
General Federation of Labor is a somewhat heavy mass; it will
become more and more heavy as it comprises the majority of the
working clatfs which is by nature rather pacific at the bottom."

While there is no sufficient reason for the accusation that
the Socialist movement neglects the brain workers of the
salaried and professional classes, there is somewhat more solid
ground, in spite of the above quoted declarations of Lieb-
knecht and nerve", for the accusation that it antagonizes
those sections of the middle classes which are, even to a
slight degree, small capitalists, as, for example, especially the
farmers.

296 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"The unimaginative person," says Mr. H. G, Wells, "who
owns some little bit of property, an acre or so of freehold land,
or a hundred pounds in the savings bank, will no doubt be
the most tenacious passive resister to Socialist ideas; and
such I fear we must reckon, together with the insensitive rich,
as our irreconcilable enemies, as irremovable pillars of the
present order." (15)

This view is widespread among Socialists, and is even sus-
tained by Kautsky. "Small merchants and innkeepers,"
he writes, "have despaired of ever rising by their own exer-
tions; they expect everything from above and look only to
the upper classes and to the government for assistance,"
though they "find their customers only in laboring circles, so
that their existence is absolutely dependent upon the pros-
perity or adversity of the laboring classes." The contra-
diction Kautsky finds goes even further. He says, "Servility
depends upon reaction — and furnishes not only the willing
supporters, but the fanatical advocates of the monarchy, the
church, and the nobility." With all this they (the shop-
keepers, etc.) remain democratic, since it is only through
democracy that they can obtain political influence. Kautsky
calls them the "reactionary democracy." (16) But if they
are democratic and in part economically dependent on the
laboring classes, then why should not this part cast its lot
economically and politically with the working class ?

Kautsky extends his criticism of the small capitalists very
far and even seems in doubt concerning the owners of small
investments such as savings bank deposits. "Well-meaning
optimists," he says, "have seen in this a means of decentraliz-
ing capital, so that after a while, in the most peaceable man-
ner, without any one noticing it, capital would be transformed
into social property. In fact, this movement really means
the transformation of all the money of the middle and lower
classes, which is not used by them for immediate consump-
tion, into money capital, and as such placing it at the disposal
of the great financiers for the buying out of industrial man-
agers, and thereby assisting in the concentration on industry
in the hands of a few financiers."

The classes which have invested their capital directly or
indirectly in stocks or bonds through savings banks and
through insurance companies number many millions, and
include the large majority of all sections of the middle class,
even of its most progressive part, salaried employees, and the

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 297

professional element. It is undoubtedly true, as Kautsky
says, that small investors are not obtaining any direct con-
trol over capital, and that their funds are used in the way he
points out, constituting one of the striking and momentous
tendencies of the time. But it does not follow that they are
destined to lose such investments altogether, as the legislative
reforms to protect banks may be extended to the railroads
and other forms of investments. The small investors will
scarcely be turned to favor capitalism by their investments,
which bring in small profit and allow them nothing to say in
the management of industry, but neither will the losses they
sometimes suffer from this source be sufficient in themselves
to convert them into allies of the working class.

As in the case of the farmers and small shopkeepers, every-
thing here depends upon the economic and political program
which the working class develops and offers in competition
with the "State Socialism "• of the capitalists. If it were
true that the ownership of the smallest amount of property
brings it about that Socialism is no longer desired, not a small
minority of the population will be found aligned with the
capitalists, but all the four million owners of farms, and the
other millions with a thousand dollars or so invested in a build-
ing and loan association, an insurance policy or a savings bank
deposit, a total numbering almost half of the occupied popu-
lation. A bare majority, it is true, might still be without
any stake in the community even of this modest character.
But neither in the United States nor elsewhere is there any
hope that a majority of the absolutely propertyless, even if it
becomes a large one, will become sufficiently large within a
generation, or perhaps even within a century, to enable it
to overthrow the capitalists, unless it draws over to its side
certain elements at least, of the middle classes, who, though
weaker in some respects are better educated, better placed, and
politically stronger than itself. The revolutionary spokes-
men of the international Socialist movement now recognize
this as clearly as do the most conservative observers.

The outcome of the great social struggle depends on the
relative success of employers and employed in gaining the
support of those classes which, either on account of their
ownership of some slight property, or because they receive
salaries or fees sufficiently large, must be placed in the middle
class, but who cannot be classified primarily as small capitalists
That this is the crux of the situation is recognized on all sides.

298 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Mr. Winston Churchill, for instance, demands that every-
thing be done to strengthen and increase numerically this
middle class, composed of millions of persons whom he claims
"would certainly lose by anything like a general overturn,
and . . . are everywhere the strongest and the best organ-
ized millions," and his "State Socialism" is directed chiefly to
that end. He believes that these millions, once become com-
pletely converted into small capitalists, would certainly pre-
vent by an overwhelming resistance any effort on the part of
the rest of the people to gain what he curiously calls, "a
selfish advantage."

Mr. Churchill says that " the masses of the people should not
use the fact that they are in a majority as a means to advance
their relative position in society." There could not be a sharper
contrast between "State Socialism" and Socialism. To
Socialists the whole duty of man as a social being is to per-
suade the masses to "use the fact that they are in a majority
as a means to advance their relative position in society."
Mr. Churchill seems to feel that as long as everybody shares
more or less in the general increase of prosperity from genera-
tion to generation, and, as he says, as long as there is "an
ever increasing volume of production and an increasing wide
diffusion of profit," there is no ground for complaint —
whether the relative division of wealth and opportunity
between the many and the few becomes more equal or not.
But he realizes that his moral suasion is not likely to be heeded
and is wise in putting his trust in the middle-class millions.
For these are the bone of contention between capitalism and
Socialism.

While the new middle class (that is, the lower salaried
classes, corporation employees, professional men, etc.) is
increasing numerically more rapidly than any other, large
numbers within it are being deprived of any hope of rising
into the wealthy or privileged class. As a consequence they
are everywhere crowding into the Socialist ranks — by the
hundred thousand in countries where the movement is oldest.
Even in the organized Socialist parties these middle-class
elements everywhere form a considerable proportion of the
whole. Practically a third of the American Party according
to a recent reckoning were engaged either in farming (15 per
cent) or in commercial (9 per cent) or professional pursuits
(5 per cent).

It is plain that certain sections of the so-called middle class

SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 299

are not only welcomed by Socialist parties, but constitute
their most dependable and indispensable elements. Indeed,
the majority of the Socialists agree with Kautsky that the
danger lies in the opposite direction, that an unreliable small
capitalist element has been admitted that will make trouble
until it leaves the movement, in other words, that Socialist
friendship for these classes has gone to the point of risking
the existence of their organization. Surely their presence is
a guarantee that Socialists have not been ruled by the work-
ing class or proletarian "fetish," against which Marx warned
them more than half a century ago.

CHAPTER II

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES AND THE
LAND QUESTION

I HAVE pointed out the relation of the Socialist movement
to all classes but one, — the agriculturists, — a class numeric-
ally next in importance to the industrial wage earners.

On the one hand most agriculturists are small capitalists,
who, even when they do not own their farms, are often forced
to-day to invest a considerable sum in farm animals and
machinery, in rent and interest and in wages at the harvest
season ; on the other hand, a large part of the farmers work
harder and receive less for their work than skilled laborers,
while the amount they own, especially when tenants, scarcely
exceeds what it has cost many skilled workers to learn their
trade. Are the great majority of farmers, then, rather small
capitalists or laborers?

For many years Socialists paid comparatively little atten-
tion to the problem. How was it then imagined that a polit-
ical program could obtain the support of the majority of the
voters without presenting to the agricultural population as
satisfactory a solution of their difficulties as that it offered
to the people of the towns ? On the other hand, how was it
possible to adapt a program frankly "formulated by or for
the workingmen of large-scale industry" to the conditions of
agriculture ?

The estimate of the rural population that has hitherto
prevailed among the Socialists of most countries may be seen
from the following language of Kautsky's: —

"We have already seen how the peasant's production [that of
the small farmer] isolates men. The capitalists' means of pro-
duction and the modern State, to be sure, have a powerful tendency
to put an end to the isolation of the peasant through taxation,
military service, railways, and newspapers. But the increase of the
points of contact between town and country as a rule only have
the effect that the peasant farmer feels his desolation and isolation
less keenly. They raise him up as a peasant farmer, but awake in
him a longing for the town ; they drive all the most energetic and

300

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 301

independently thinking elements from the country into the towns,
and rob the former of its forces. So that the progress of modern
economic life has the effect of increasing the desolation and lone-
someness of the country rather than ending it.

"The truth is that in every country the agricultural population
is economically and politically the most backward. That does not
imply any reflection on it ; it is its misfortune, but it is a fact with
which one must deal." (1)

Not only Kautsky and Vandervelde, but whole Socialist
parties like those of Austria and Germany, are given to the
exploitation of the supposed opposition between town and
country, the producer and the consumer of agricultural prod-
ucts. At the German Socialist Congress of 1911, Bebel de-
clared that to-day those who were most in need of protection
were the consumers of agricultural products, the working-
men, lower middle classes and employees. He felt the day
was approaching when the increased cost of living would
form the chief question before the German people, the day
when the German people would raise a storm and tear down
the tariffs on the necessaries of life as well as other meas-
ures that unduly favor the agriculturists — while the pro-
posal of socialization would come up first in the field of
agriculture.

While, in view of the actual level of prices in Germany,
there is no doubt that even the smallest of the agriculturists
are getting some share of the spoils of the tariffs and other
measures Bebel mentions, there can also be little question
that in such a storm of revolt as he predicts the pendulum
would swing too far the other way, and they would suffer
unjustly. It is true that the agriculturist produces bread,
while the city worker consumes it, but so also do shoe workers
produce shoes that are consumed by garment workers, and
certainly no Socialist predicts any lasting struggle between
producers of shoes and producers of clothing. It is true also
that if the wage earner's condition is to be improved, some
limit must be set to prices as wages are raised. But the flour
manufacturer and the baker must be restrained as well as the
grain producer. Nor do Socialists expect to accomplish much
by the mere regulation of prices. And when it comes to their
remedy, socialization, there is less reason, as I shall show, for
beginning with land rent than with industrial capital, and
the Socialist parties of France and America recognize this
fact.

302 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

But it is the practical result of this supposed opposition of
town and country rather than its inconsistency with Socialist
principles that must hold our attention. Certainly no agri-
cultural program and no appeal to the agricultural popula-
tion, perhaps not even one addressed to agricultural laborers,
can hope for success while this view of the opposition of town
and country is maintained ; for all agriculturists want what
they consider to be reasonable prices for their products, and
their whole life depends directly or indirectly on these prices.
When the workmen agitate, as they so often do in Europe, for
cheap bread and meat, without qualifying their agitation by
any regard for the agriculturists, all hope of obtaining the
support of any of the agricultural classes, even laborers,
is for the time being abandoned.

The predominance of town over country is so important
to Kautsky that he even opposes such a vital piece of demo-
cratic reform as direct legislation where the town-country
population is the more numerous than that of the towns.
"We have seen" he says, "that the modern representative
system is not very favorable to the peasantry or to the small
capitalists, especially of the country towns. The classes
which the representative system most favors are the large
owners of capital or land, the highly educated, and under a
democratic electoral system, the militant and class-conscious
part of the industrial working class. So in general one can
say parliamentarism favors the population of the large towns
as against that of the country."

Far from being disturbed at this unjust and unequal sys-
tem, Kautsky prefers that it should not be reformed, unless
the town population are in a majority. "Direct legislation
by the people works against these tendencies of parliamenta-
rism. If the latter strives to place the political balance of
power in the population of the large towns, the former puts
it in the masses of the population, but these still live every-
where and for the most part in a large majority, with the
exception of England, in the country and in the small country
towns. Direct legislation takes away from the population
of the large towns their special political influence, and sub-
jects them to the country population." (2)

He concludes that wherever and as long as the agricultural
population remains in a majority, the Socialists have no
special reason to work for direct legislation.

Of course Kautsky and his school do not expect this sepa-

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 303

ration or antagonism of agriculture and industry to last very
far into the future. But as long as capitalism lasts they
believe agriculturists will play an entirely subordinate role
in politics. "While the capitalist mode of production in-
creases visibly the difficulties of the formation of a revolu-
tionary class (in the country), it favors it in the towns," he
says. "It there concentrates the laboring masses, creates
conditions favorable to every organization for their mental
evolution and for their class struggle. ... It debilitates
the country, disperses the agricultural workers over vast
areas, isolates them, robs them of all means of mental
development and resistance to exploitation." (3)

Similarly Vandervelde quotes from Voltaire's essay on
customs a sentence describing the European peasantry of a
hundred and fifty years ago as "savages living in cabins
with their females and a few animals," and asks, " who
would dare to pretend that these words have lost all their
reality ? " He admits that "rural barbarism has decreased,"
but still considers the peasantry, not as a class which must
take an active 'part in bringing about Socialism, but as one
to which "conquering Socialism will bring political liberty
and social equality." (4)

Kautsky says that either the small farmer is not really
independent, and pieces out his income by hiring himself
out occasionally to some larger landowner or other employer,
or else, if entirely occupied with his own work, that he man-
ages to compete with large-scale cultivation only "by over-
work and underconsumption, by barbarism, as Marx says."

"To-day the situation of the city proletariat," Kautsky
adds, "is already so superior to the barbaric situation of the
older peasants, that the younger peasants' generation is
leaving the fields along with the class of rural wage earners."
There can be no question that small farms, those without
permanent hired labor, survive competition with the larger
and better equipped, only by overwork and underconsump-
tion. But the unfavorable comparison with city wage
earners and the repetition to-day of Marx's term "barbarism"
is no longer justified. Where these conditions still exist,
they are due largely to special legal obstacles placed in the
way of European peasants, and to legal privileges given to
the great landlords, — in other words, to remnants of feu-
dalism. Kautsky's error in making this as a statement of
general application would seem to be based on a confusion

304 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of the survivals of feudalism, as seen in some parts of Europe,
with the necessary conditions of agricultural production, as
seen in this country.

Kautsky himself has lately given full recognition to another
factor in the agricultural situation — the horrors of wage
slavery, which acts in the very opposite manner to these feudal
conditions and prevents both small agriculturists and agricul-
tural laborers from immigrating to the towns in greater num-
bers than they do, and persuades them in spite of its drudgery
to prefer the life of the owner of a small farm.

"Since labor in large-scale industry takes to-day the repul-
sive form of wage labor," he says, "many owners of small
properties keep holding on to them with the greatest sacri-
fices, for the sole purpose of avoiding falling into the serfdom
and insecurity of wage labor. Only Socialism can put an
end to small production, not of course by the forceful ejection
of small owners, but by giving them an opportunity to work
for the perfected large establishments with a shortened
working day and a larger income." (5) Surely there is little
ground to lay special stress on the "barbarism" of small
farms, if such a large proportion of farmers and agricultural
laborers prefer it on good grounds to "the serfdom and
insecurity" of labor on large farms or in manufacturing estab-
lishments.

It is doubtless chiefly because European conditions are such
as to make the conversion of the majority of agriculturists
difficult, that so many European Socialists claim that an
existing or prospective preponderance of manufacturers
makes it unnecessary. But, while in many countries of
Europe the remnants of feudalism, or rather of eighteenth-
century absolutism and landlord rule, to which this back-
ward political condition is largely due, have not only sur-
vived, but have been modernized, through the protection
extended to large estates, so as to become a part and parcel
of modern capitalism, this condition does not promise to
be at all lasting. There are already signs of change in the
agricultural sections of Bohemia, Hungary, and Italy, while
in France, where the political influence of the large landlord
class is rapidly on the decline, the Socialists have appealed
successfully, under certain conditions, not only to agricul-
tural laborers, but also to small independent farmers.

As Socialists come to take a world view, giving due promi-
nence to countries like France and the United States, where

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 305

agriculture has had its freest development, they grow away
from the older standpoint and give more attention to the
rural population. The rapid technical evolution of agricul-
ture and the equally rapid changes in the ownership of land
in a country like the United States have encouraged our
Socialists to reexamine the whole question. I cannot enter
into a discussion, even the most cursory, of agricultural
evolution in this country, but a few indications from the cen-
sus of 1910 will show the general tendencies.

Farm owners and tenants probably now have $45,000,-
000,000 in property (1910), fully a third of the national
wealth, and with 6,340,000 farms they are just about
a third of our population. This calculation does not allow
for interest (where farmers have borrowed) or rent (where
they are tenants) ; on the other hand, it does not allow for
the fact that many farmers have bank accounts and outside
investments. But it indicates the prosperity of a large part
of the farming class.

The value of the land of the average farm has doubled
since 1900 ($2271 in 1900 — $4477 in 1910) in spite of a
decrease in the size of farms, while the amount spent for
labor increased 80 per cent, which the statistics show was due
in part to higher wages, but in larger part to the greater amount
of labor and the greater number of laborers used. Other expendi-
tures increased almost proportionately, and the capital em-
ployed in land, buildings, machinery, fertilizers, and labor
has almost doubled in this short period. As prices advanced
less than 25 per cent during the decade, all these increases
were largely real. The gross income of the average farm
owner, measured in what it could buy, evidently rose by more
than 50 per cent, and his real net income nearly as fast. The
average farm owner then was receiving a fair share of the
increase of the national wealth.

But farmers cannot profitably be considered as a single
class. Tenants are rarely at the same time landlords.
Farmers paying interest are usually not the same as those
holding mortgages. A few of the debtors may be very suc-
cessful men who borrow only to buy more land and hire more
labor. But very few tenants are in this class. We may safely
assume that those who own without a mortgage or employ
labor steadily with one are getting more than an average
share of the national wealth, while tenants or those who
have mortgaged their land heavily and do not regularly hire

306 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

labor (except at harvest) are, in the average case, getting
less. Investments of borrowed money in the best machinery
or farm animals by a single family working alone and on a
very small scale, may give a good return above interest, but
this return is strictly limited unless with most exceptional
or most fortunate persons.

Now the statistics of the increase of agricultural wages
show that they rose in no such proportion as the increase
of agricultural capital — and the possibility of a farm hand
saving his wages and becoming the owner of one of these
more and more costly farms is more remote than ever. But
there is a third solution — the agricultural laborer may
neither remain a laborer nor become an owner. If he can
accumulate enough capital for machinery, horses, farm ani-
mals, and seed, he can pay for the use of the land from his
annual product, he can become a tenant. On the other side,
if the value of the usual 160-acre homestead rises to $20,000
or $30,000, the owner is easily able to make a few thousand
dollars in addition by selling his farm animals and machinery
and to retire to the country town and live on his rent.

It is evident that the position of most of these farm ten-
ants is very close to that of laborers. Though working on
their own account, it is so difficult for them to make a living
that they are forced to the longest hours and to the exploita-
tion of their wives and children under all possible and impos-
sible circumstances. Already farm tenants are almost as
numerous in this country as farm owners. The census
figures indicated that the proportion of tenants had risen
from 23 per cent in 1880 to 37 per cent in 1910. Not only
this, but a closer inspection of the figures by States will show
that, whereas in new States like Minnesota, where tenancy
has not had time to develop, it embraced in 1900 less than
20 per cent of the total number of farms, in many older States
the percentage had already risen high above 40. This
increase of tenants proves an approach of the United States
to the fundamental economic condition of older countries
— the divorce of land cultivation from land ownership, and
the census of 1910 shows that three eighths of the farms of the
United States are already in that condition.

Land and hired labor are the chief sources of agricultural
wealth, and capital is most productive only when it is invested
in these as well as other means of production. That is, if the
small farmer is really a small capitalist, if he is to receive a

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 307

return from his capital as well as his own individual and that
of his family labor, he must, as a rule, either have enough
capital to provide work for others and his family, or he must
get a share of the unearned increment through the ownership
of his farm, or long leases without revaluation. Farm ten-
ants who do not habitually employ labor, or those whose
mortgages are so heavy as practically to place them in the
position of such tenants, are, for these reasons, undoubtedly
accessible to Socialist ideas — as long as they remain farm
tenants.

But now after discarding all the European prejudices above
referred to, let us look at the other side. Tenants every-
where belong to those classes which, as Kautsky truly says,
in the passage quoted in a previous chapter, are also a recruit-
ing ground for the capitalists. They are more likely to be
the owners of the capital, now a considerable sum, needed
to operate a small farm (cattle, machinery, etc.) than are
farm laborers, and it is for their benefit chiefly that the
various governmental plans for creating new small farms
through irrigation, reclamation, and the division of large
estates are contrived. And it is even possible that practi-
cally all the present tenants may some day be provided for.

By maintaining or creating small farms then, or providing
for a system of long leases and small-sized allotments of
governmentally owned land, guaranteed against any raise
in rents during the term of the lease, capitalist governments
may gradually succeed in firmly attaching the larger part
of the struggling small farmers and farm tenants to capital-
ism. While still in the individualistic form capitalism will
establish, wherever it can, privately owned small farms;
when it will have adopted the collectivist policy, it will inaug-
urate a system of national ownership and long leases.

Even the small farmer who hires no labor, and does not even
own his farm, will probably be held, as a class, by capitalism,
but only by the collectivist capitalism of the future, which
will probably protect him from landlordism by keeping the
title to the land, but dividing the unearned increment with
him by a system of long leases, and using its share of this
increment for the promotion of agriculture and for other
purposes he approves.

Socialists, then, do not expect to include in their ranks in
considerable numbers, either agricultural employers or such
tenants, laborers, or farm owners as are becoming, or believe

308 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

they will become, employers (either under present govern-
ments or under collectivist capitalism).

Only when the day finally comes when Socialism begins
to exert a pressure on the government adversely to the in-
terest of the capitalist class will higher wages and new gov-
ernmental expenditures on wage earners begin to reverse
conditions automatically, making labor dearer, small farms
which employ labor less profitable, and a lease of govern-
ment land less desirable, for example, than the position of a
skilled employee on a model government farm. All govern-
ments will then be forced by the farming population itself
to lend more and more support to the Socialist policy of
great national municipal or county farms, rather than to
the artificial promotion or small-scale agriculture.

For the present and the near future the only lasting support
Socialists can find in the country is from the surplus of agri-
cultural laborers and perhaps a certain part of the tenants, i.e.
those who cannot be provided for even if all large estates
are everywhere divided into small farms, all practicable works
of reclamation and irrigation completed, and scientific
methods introduced — and who will find no satisfactory
opportunity in neighboring countries. It must be acknowl-
edged that such tenants at present form no very large part
of the agricultural population in the United States. On the
other hand, agriculturists are even less backward here than
in Europe, and there is less opposition between town and
country, and both these facts favor rural Socialism.

If, however, the majority of farmers must remain inacces-
sible to Socialism until the great change is at hand, this is
not because they are getting an undue share of the national
wealth or because they are private property fanatics, or
because agriculturists are economically and politically back-
ward, or because they are hostile to labor, though all this is
true of many, but because of all classes, they are the most
easily capable of being converted into (or perpetuated as)
small capitalists by the reforms of the capitalist states-
man in search of reliable and numerically important political
support.

I have shown the attitude of the Socialists towards each
of^the agricultural classes — their belief that they will be able
to attach'' to themselves the agricultural laborers and those
tenants and independent farmers who are neither landlords
nor steady employers, nor expect to become such. But what

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 309

now is the attitude of laborers, tenants, etc., towards Socialism,
and what program do the Socialists offer to attract them?
Let us first consider a few general reforms on which all
Socialists would agree and which would be acceptable to all
classes of agriculturists. Socialists differ upon certain funda-
mental alterations in their program which have been proposed
in order to adapt it to agriculture. Aside from these, all
Socialist parties wish to do everything that is possible to
attract agriculturists. They favor such measures as the
nationalization of forests, irrigation, state fire insurance, the
nationalization of transportation, the extension of free educa-
tion and especially of free agricultural education, the organ-
ization of free medical assistance, graduated income and inher-
itance taxes, and the decrease of military expenditures, etc.
It will be seen that all these reforms are such as might be,
and often are, adopted by parties which have nothing to do
with Socialism. Community ownership of forests and na-
tional subsidies for roads are urged by so conservative a
body as Mr. Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life.
They are all typical "State Socialist" (i.e. State capitalist)
measures, justifiable and indispensable, but not intimately
related with the program of Socialism. The indorsement
of such measures might indeed assure the Socialists the
friendly cooperation of political factions representing the
agriculturists, but it could scarcely secure for them the same
partisan support in the country as they have obtained
from the workingmen of the towns.

Besides such legislative reforms as the above, the Socialists
generally favor legislative encouragement for every form of
agricultural cooperation. Kautsky says that cooperative
associations limited to purchase or sale, or for financing pur-
poses, have no special connection with Socialism, but favors
productive cooperation, and in France this is one of the chief
measures advocated by the most ardent of the Socialist
agriculturist agitators, Compere-Morel, who was elected to
the Chamber of Deputies from an agricultural district.
Compere-Morel notes that the above-mentioned govern-
mental measures of the State Socialistic variety are likely to
be introduced by reformers who have no sympathy either with
Socialism or with labor unions, and as a counterweight he
lays a great emphasis on cooperative organizations for pro-
duction, which could work with the labor unions and their
cooperative stores and also with Socialist municipalities.

310 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

In France and elsewhere there is already a strong movement
to municipalize the milk supply, the municipalization of
slaughterhouses is far advanced, and municipal bakeries
are a probability of the near future. Such cooperative
organizations, however, like the legislative proposals above
mentioned, are already so widely in actual operation and are
so generally supported by powerful non-Socialist organiza-
tions that Socialist support can be of comparatively little
value.

There is no reason why a collectivist but capitalist democ-
racy should not favor both associations for productive
cooperation and friendly relations between these and col-
lectivist municipalities; nor why they should fail to favor
an enlightened labor policy in such cases, at least as far as
the resulting increase of efficiency in the laborer justified it,
i.e. as long as his product rises, as a result of such reforms,
faster than what it costs to introduce them.

Socialists also favor the nationalization of the land, but
without the expropriation of self-employing farmers, as
these are felt to be more sinned against than sinning. " With
the present conservative nature of our farmers, it is highly
probable that a number of them would [under Socialism]
continue to work in the present manner," Kautsky says.
"The proletarian governmental power would have absolutely
no inclination to take over such little businesses. As yet
no Socialist who is to be taken seriously has ever demanded
that the farmers should be expropriated, or that their goods
should be confiscated. It is much more probable that each
little farmer would be permitted to work on as he has pre-
viously done. The farmer has nothing to fear from a Social-
ist regime. Indeed, it is highly probable," he adds, "that
these agricultural industries would receive considerable
strengthening through the new regime."

Socialists generally agree with Mr. A. M.Simons's resolution
at the last American Socialist Convention (1910) : "So long
as tools are used merely by individual handicraftsmen, they
present no problem of ownership which the Socialist is com-
pelled to solve. The same is true of land. Collective
ownership is urged by the Socialist, not as an end in itself,
not as a part of a Utopian scheme, but as the means of pre-
venting exploitation, and wherever individual ownership
is an agency of exploitation, then such ownership is opposed
by Socialism." (6)

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 311

Exploitation here refers to the employment of laborers,
and this is the central point of the Socialist policy. To the
Socialists the land question and the labor question are one.
Every agricultural policy must deal with both. If we were
confronted to-day exclusively by large agricultural estates,
the Socialist policy would be the same as in other industries.
All agricultural capital would be nationalized or municipal-
ized as fast as it became sufficiently highly organized to make
this practicable. And as the ground rent can be taken sep-
arately, and with the least difficulty, this would be the first
to go. Agricultural labor, in the meanwhile, would be organ-
ized and as the day approached when the Socialists were
about to gain control of the government, and the wages of
government employees began rapidly to rise, those of agri-
cultural and all other privately employed labor would rise
also, until private profits were destroyed and the process of
socialization brought rapidly to completion.

But where the scale of production is so small that the
farmer and his family do the work and do not habitually hire
outside labor, the whole case is different. The chief exploita-
tion here is self-exploitation. The capital owned is so small
that it may be compared in value with the skilled worker's
trade education, especially when we consider the small return
it brings in, allowing for wages for the farmer and his family.
Even though, as owner, he receives that part of the rise in
the value of his land due to the general increase of population
and wealth and not to his own labor (the unearned incre-
ment),'his income is less than that of many skilled laborers.

Two widely different policies are for these reasons adopted
by all reformers when dealing with large agricultural estates
and small self-employing farmers. On this point there is
little room for difference of opinion. But small farmers
are not a sharply defined class. They are constantly re-
cruited from agricultural laborers and tenants on the one
hand, and are constantly becoming employing farmers on
the other — or the process may take the opposite course,
large farms may break up and small farmers may become
laborers — for all or a part of their time. All agricultural
reforms may be viewed not only in their relation to existing
small farmers, but as to their effect on the increase or decrease
of the relative proportions of small self-employing farmers,
of employing farmers, and of agricultural laborers.

And here appears the fundamental distinction between the

312 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Socialist program and that of collectivist capitalism as far
as the small farmers are concerned. Socialists agree in want-
ing to aid those small farmers who are neither capitalists
nor employers on a sufficient scale to classify them with those
elements, but they neither wish to perpetuate the system of
small farms nor to obstruct the development of the more pro-
ductive large-scale farming and the normal increase of an
agricultural working class ready for cooperative or govern-
mental employment. They point to the universal law that
large-scale production is more economical, and show that
this applies to agriculture. Small farming strictly limits
the point to which the income of the agricultural population
can rise, prevents the cheapening of the production of food,
and furnishes a constant stream of cheap labor composed of
discontented agricultural laborers who prefer the more steady
income, limited hours, and better conditions of wage earners.

"Even the most energetic champions of small farming," says
Kautsky, "do not make the least attempt to show its superiority,
as this would be a hopeless task. What they maintain is only the
superiority of labor on one's own property to wage labor for a strange
exploiter. . . . But if the large farm offers the greater possibility
of lessening the work of the agricultural laborers, then it would be
a betrayal of the latter to set before them as a goal, not the capture
and technical development of large forms, but their break up into
numerous small farms. That would mean nothing less than a willing-
ness to perpetuate the drudgery under which the agricultural laborers
and small farmers now suffer." (7)

But how shall Socialists aid small farmers without increas-
ing the number of small farms ? It might be thought that
the nationalization of the land would solve the problem.
The government, once become the general landlord, could use
the rent fund to improve the condition of all classes of agri-
culturists, without unduly favoring any, agricultural evolu-
tion could take its natural course, and the most economical
method of production, i.e, large farms or large cooperative
associations, would gradually come to predominate. But
the capitalist collectivists who now control or will soon control
governments, far from feeling any anxiety about the persist-
ence of small-scale farming, believe that the small farmers
can be made into the most reliable props of capitalism.
Accordingly collectivist reformers either promote schemes
of division of large estates and favor the creation of large

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 313

masses of small owners by this and every other available
means, such as irrigation or reclamation projects, or if they
indorse nationalization of the land in order to get the un-
earned increment for their governments, they still make the
leases on as small a scale and revaluations at as long intervals
as possible, and so do almost as much artificially to perpetuate
the small farm under this system as they could by furthering
private ownership.

Although there is no necessary and immediate conflict of
interest between wage earners and small farmers, it is evi-
dent that it is impossible for Socialists to offer the small
farmers as much as the capitalist collectivists do, — for the
latter are willing in this instance to promote, for political
purposes, an uneconomic mode of production which is a
burden on all society.

Here, however, appears an economic tendency that relieves
the situation for the Socialist. Under private ownership or
land nationalization with long leases and small-scale farms,
it is only once in a generation or even less frequently that
farms are subdivided. But the amount of capital and labor
that can be profitably applied to a given area of land, the in-
tensity of farming, increases very rapidly. The former self-
employing farmer, everywhere encouraged by governments,
soon comes to employ steadily one or more laborers. And
it is notable that in every country of the world these middle-
sized or moderate-sized farms are growing more rapidly than
either the large-scale or the one-family farms. This has an
economic and a political explanation. Though large farms
have more economic advantages than small, the latter have
nothing to expend for superintendence and get much more
work from each person occupied. The middle-sized farms
preserve these advantages and gradually come also to employ
much of the most profitable machinery, that is out of
reach of the small farmer. Politically their position is still
stronger. They are neither rich nor few like the large land-
holders. Their employees are one, two, or three on each farm,
and isolated.

Here, then, is the outcome of the agricultural situation that
chiefly concerns the Socialist. The middle-sized farmer is a
small capitalist and employer who, like the rest of his kind,
will in every profound labor crisis be found with the large
capitalist. His employees will outnumber him as voters and
will have little hope that the government will intervene some

314 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

day to make them either proprietors or possessors of long-
term leases. The capital, moreover, to run this kind of farm
or to compete with it, will be greater and greater and more
and more out of their agricultural laborer's reach. These
employees will be Socialists.

We are now in a position to understand the divisions among
the Socialists on the agricultural question. The Socialist
policy as to agriculture may be divided into three peri-
ods. During the ascendency of capitalistic collectivism
it will be powerless to do more than to support the col-
lectivist reforms, including partial nationalization of the
land, partial appropriation of unearned increment by na-
tional or local governments, municipal and cooperative
production, and the numerous reforms already mentioned.
In the second period, the approach of Socialism will hasten
all these changes automatically through the rapid rise in
wages, and in the third period, when the Socialists are in
power, special measures will be taken still further to hasten
the process until all land is gradually nationalized and all
agricultural production carried on by governmental bodies
or cooperative societies of actual workers.

If the Socialists gain control of any government, or if
they come near enough to doing this to be able to force con-
cessions at the cost of capital, a double effect will be produced
on agriculture. The general rise in wages will destroy the
profits of many farmer employers, and it will offer to the
smallest self-employing farmers the possibility of an income
as wage earners so much larger, and conditions so much
better, than anything they can hope for as independent pro-
ducers that they will cease to prefer self-employment. The
high cost of labor will favor both large scale production, either
capitalistic or cooperative, and national, state, county, and
municipal farms. Without any but an automatic economic
pressure, small-scale and middle-scale farming would tend
rapidly to give place to these other higher forms, and these
in turn would tend to become more and more highly organized
as other industries have done, until social production became
a possibility. Not only would there be no need of coercive
legislative measures, but the automatic pressure would be,
not that of misery or bankruptcy pressing the self-employing
farmer from behind, but of a larger income and better condi-
tions drawing the majority forward to more developed and
social forms of production.

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 315

In France a considerable and increasing number of the
Socialist members of Parliament are elected by the peasantry,
and the same is true of Italy. In nerve" the French have
developed a world-famed ultra-revolutionary who always
makes his appeal to peasants as well as workers, and in
Compere-Morel, one of the most able of those economists
and organizers of the international movement who give the
agriculturists their chief attention. The latter has recently
summed up the position of the French Party in a few incisive
paragraphs — which show its similarity to that of the Ameri-
cans. His main idea is to let economic evolution take its
course, which, in proportion as labor is effectively organized,
will inevitably lead towards collective ownership and opera-
tion and so pave the way for Socialism : —

"As to small property, it is not our mission either to hasten or to
precipitate its disappearance. A product of labor, quite often being
merely a tool of the one who is detaining it, not only do we respect
it, we do something more yet, we relieve it from taxes, usury, scan-
dalous charges on the part of the middlemen, whose victim it is.
And this will be done in order to make possible its free evolution
towards superior forms of exploitation and ownership, which be-
come more and more inevitable.

"This means that there is no necessity at all to appeal to violence,
to use constraint and power in order to inaugurate in the domain
of rural production, the only mode of ownership fit to utilize the new
technical agricultural tools : collective ownership.

"On the other hand, a new form of ownership cannot be imposed;
it is the new form of ownership which is imposing itself.

"It is in vain that they use the most powerful, the most artifical,
means to develop, to multiply, and animate the private ownership
of the land ; the social ownership of the land will impose itself,
through the force of events, on the most stubborn, on the most ob-
stinate, of the partisans of individual ownership of the rural domain."

The French Socialists do not propose to interfere with
titles of any but very large properties, or even with inherit-
ance. Whether they have to meet government ownership
and 33-year leases now being tried on a small scale in New
Zealand, or whether a capitalist collectivist government
allows agricultural evolution and land titles to take their
natural course, they expect to corner the labor supply, and in
this way ultimately to urge agriculture along in the Socialist
direction. From the moment they have done this, they
expect a steady tendency on the part of agriculturists to look

316 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

forward, as the workingmen have done, to the Socialist
State: —

"The question arises, under a Socialist regime, will small property,
the property cultivated by the owner and his family, be trans-
missible, allowed to be sold, or left as inheritance to the children,
to the nephews, and even to very remote cousins ? From the mo-
ment this property is not used as an instrument of exploitation —
and in a Socialist society, labor not being sold, it could never become
one — what do we care whether it changes hands every morning,
whether it travels around through a whole family or country ? "

For, since the Socialist State will furnish work for all that
apply, at the best remuneration, and under the best condi-
tions, especially as it will do this in its own agricultural enter-
prises, relatively few farmers will be able to pay enough to
secure other workers than those of their own families.

In the United States the Party has definitely decided by a
large majority, in a referendum vote, that it does not intend
to try to disturb the self-employing farmer in any way in
his occupation and use of the land. In a declaration adopted
in 1909, when, by a referendum vote of nearly two to one,
the demand for the immediate collective ownership of the
land was dropped from the platform, the following paragraph
was inserted : —

"There can be no absolute private title to land. All pri-
vate titles, whether called fee simple or otherwise, are and
must be subordinate to the public title. The Socialist Party
strives to prevent land from being used for the purpose of
exploitation and speculation. It demands the collective
possession, control, or management of land to whatever
extent may be necessary to attain that end. It is not opposed
to the occupation and possession of land by those using it
in a useful bona fide manner without exploitation." (My
italics.)

Those American Socialists who have given most attention
to the subject, like Mr. Simons, have long since made up
their minds that there is no hope whatever either for the
victory or even for the rapid development of Socialism in
this country unless it takes some root among the agricul-
turists. Mr. Simons insists that the Socialists should array
against the forces of conservatism, privilege, and exploita-
tion, " all those whose labor assists in the production of
wealth, for all these make up the army of exploited, and all
are interested in the abolition of exploitation."

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 317

"In this struggle," he continues, "farmers and factory
wage workers must make common cause. Any smaller
combination, any division in the ranks of the workers, must
render success impossible. In a country where fundamental
changes of policy are secured at the ballot box, nothing can
be accomplished without united action by all classes of
workers. . . . The better organization of the factory workers
of the cities, due to their position in the midst of a higher
developed capitalism and more concentrated industry, makes
them in no way independent of their rural brothers. So long
as they are not numerous enough to win, they are helpless.
'A miss is as good as a mile/ and coming close to a majority
avails almost nothing." (8)

Looking at the question after this from the farmers'
standpoint, Mr. Simons argues that many of the latter are
well aware that the ownership of a farm is nothing more than
the ownership of a job, and that the capitalists who own
the mortgages, railroads, elevators, meat-packing establish-
ments, and factories which produce agricultural machinery
and other needed supplies, control the lives and income of the
agriculturists almost as rigidly as they do those of their own
employees. Mr. Simons's views on this point also are prob-
ably those of a majority of the party.

Mr. Victor Berger does not consider that farmers belong
to that class by whom and for whom Socialism has come into
being. "The average farmer is not a proletarian," he says,
"yet he is a producer." (9) This would seem to imply that
the farmer should have Socialist consideration, though per-
haps not equal consideration with the workingman. Mr.
Berger's main argument apparently was that the farmers
must be included in the movement, not because this is de-
manded by principle but because "you will never get con-
trol of the United States unless you have the farming class
with you," as he said at a Socialist convention.

Thus there are three possible attitudes of Socialists towards
the self-employing farmer, and all three are represented in
the movement. Kautsky, Vandervelde, and many others
believe that after all he is not a proletarian, and therefore
should not or cannot be included in the movement. The
French Socialists and many Americans believe that he is
practically a proletarian and should and can be included.
The "reformists" in countries where he is very numerous
believe he should be included, even when (Berger) they

318 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

do not consider him as a proletarian. The Socialist move-
ment, on the whole, now stands with Kautsky and Vander-
velde, and this is undoubtedly the correct position until the
Socialists are near to political supremacy. The French and
American view, that the self-employing farmer is practically
a wage earner, is spreading, and though this view is false and
dangerous if prematurely applied (i.e. to-day) it will become
correct in the future when collectivist capitalism has ex-
hausted its reforms and the small farmer is becoming an
employee of the highly productive government farms or a
profit-sharer in cooperative associations.

At the last American Socialist Convention (1910) Mr.
Simons's resolution carefully avoided the "reformist" posi-
tion of trying to prop up either private property or small-
scale production, by the statement that, while "no Socialist
Party proposes the immediate expropriation of the farm owner
who is cultivating his own farm," that, on the other hand,
"it is not for the Socialist Party to guarantee the private
ownership of any productive property." He remarked in
the Convention that the most prominent French Marxists,
Guesde and Lafargue, had approved the action of the recent
French Socialist Congress, which had "guaranteed the peas-
ant ownership of his farm," but he would not accept this
action as good Socialism. Mr. Berger offered the same criti-
cism of the French Socialists, and added that the guarantee
would not be worth anything in any case, because our grand-
children would not be ruled by it.

However, there is a minority ready to compromise everything in
this question. Of all American States, Oklahoma has been the one
where Socialists have given the closest attention to agricultural
problems. The Socialists have obtained a considerable vote in every
county of this agricultural State, and with 20,000 to 25,000 votes
they include a considerable proportion of the electorate. It is true
that their platform, though presented at the last national convention,
has not been passed upon, and may later be disapproved in several
important clauses, but it is important as showing the farthest point
the American movement has gone in this direction. Its most im-
portant points are : —

The retention and constant enlargement of the public domain.

By retaining school and other public lands.

By purchasing of arid and overflow lands and the State reclama-
tion of all such lands now held by the State or that may be acquired
by the State.

By the purchase of all lands sold for the non-payment of taxes.

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 319

Separation of the department of agriculture from the political
government.

Election of all members and officers of the Board of Agriculture
by the direct vote of the actual farmers.

Erection by the State of grain elevators and warehouses for the
storage of farm products; these elevators and warehouses to be
managed by the Board of Agriculture.

Organization by the Board of Agriculture of free agricultural
education and the establishment of model farms.

Encouragement by the Board of Agriculture of cooperative
societies of farmers —

For the buying of seed and fertilizers.

For the purchase and common use of implements and machinery.

For the preparing and sale of produce.

Organization by the State of loans on mortgages and warehouse
certificates, the interests charges to cover cost only.

State insurance against disease of animals, diseases of plants,
insect pests, hail, flood, storm, and fire.

Exemption from taxation and execution of dwellings, tools, farm
animals, implements, and improvements to the amount of one thou-
sand dollars.

A graduated tax on the value of rented land and land held for spec-
ulation.

Absentee landlords to assess their own lands, the State reserving
the right to purchase such lands at their assessed value plus 10 per
cent.

Land now in the possession of the State or hereafter acquired
through purchase, reclamation, or tax sales to be rented to landless
farmers under the supervision of the Board of Agriculture at the
prevailing rate of share rent or its equivalent. The payment of
such rent to cease as soon as the total amount of rent paid is equal
to the value of the land, and the tenant thereby acquires for himself
and his children the right of occupancy. The title to all such lands
remaining with the commonwealth. (10)

I have italicized the most significant items. The preference
given to landless farmers in the last paragraph shows that the party
in Oklahoma does not propose to distribute its greatest favors to
those who are now in possession of even the smallest amount of land.
On the other hand, once the land is governmentally "owned" and
speculation and landlordism (or renting) are provided against, the
farmer passes "the right of occupancy " of this land on to his chil-
dren. European Socialist parties, with one exception, have not gone
so far as this, and it is doubtful if the American Party will sustain
such a long step towards permanent private property. It may well
be doubted whether the Socialist movement will favor giving to
children the identical privileges their parents had, simply because
they are the children of these parents, especially if these privileges
had been materially increased in value during the parents' lifetime

320 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

by community effort, i.e. if there has been any large "unearned in-
crement." Nor will they grant any additional right after forty
years of payments or any other term, but, on the contrary, as the
land rises, through the community's efforts they would undoubtedly
see to it that rent was correspondingly increased. Socialists demand,
not penalties against landlordism, but the community appropriation
of rent — whether it is in the hands of the actual farmer or landlord.
Why, moreover, seek to discriminate against those who are in pos-
session now, and then favor those who will be in possession after
the new dispensation, by giving the latter an almost permanent
title? May there not be as many landless argicultural workers
forty years hence as there are now ? Why should those who happen
to be landless in one generation instead of the next receive superior
rights?

Not only Henry George, but Herbert Spencer and the present
governments of Great Britain (for all but agricultural land) and
Germany (in the case of cities), recognize that the element of land
values due to the community effort should go to the community.
The political principle that gives the community no permanent
claim to ground rent and is ready to give a "right of occupancy" for
two or more lifetimes (for nothing is said in the Oklahoma program
about the land returning to the government) without any provisions
for increased rentals and with no rents at all after forty years, is
reactionary as compared with recent land reform programs elsewhere
(as that of New Zealand).

Even Mr. Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life goes nearly
as far as the Oklahoma Socialists when it condemns speculation in
farm lands and tenancy ; while Mr. Roosevelt himself has suggested
as a remedy in certain instances the leasing of parts of the national
domain. Indeed, the "progressive" capitalists everywhere favor
either small self-employing farmers or national ownership and leases
for long terms and in small allotments, and as "State Socialism"
advances it will unquestionably lean towards the latter system.
There is nothing Socialistic either in government encouragement
either of one-family farms or in a national leasing system with long-
term leases as long as the new revenue received goes for the usual
"State Socialistic" purposes.

The American Party, moreover, has failed so far to come out
definitely in favor of the capitalist-collectivist principle of
the State appropriation of ground rent, already indorsed by
Marx in 1847 and again in 1883 (see his letter about Henry
George, Part I, Chapter VIII). In preparing model constitu-
tions for New Mexico and Arizona (August, 1910), the Na-
tional Executive Committee took up the question of taxation
and recommended graduated income and inheritance taxes,
but nothing was said about the State taking the future rise in

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 321

rents. This is not a reaction when compared to the present
world status of non-Socialist land reform, for the taxation
of unearned increment has not yet been extended to agri-
cultural land in use, but it is decidedly a reaction when com-
pared with the Socialists' own position in the past.

In a semiagricultural country like the United States it
is natural that "State Socialism" should influence the Social-
ist Party in its treatment of the land question more than in
any other direction, and this influence is, perhaps, the gravest
danger that threatens the party at the present writing.

By far the most important popular organ of Socialism in this
country is the Appeal to Reason of Girard, Kansas, which now cir-
culates nearly half a million copies weekly — a large part of which
go into rural communities. The Appeal endeavors, with some
success, to reflect the views of the average party member, without
supporting any faction. As Mr. Debs is one of its editors, it may
be understood that it stands fundamentally against the compromise
of any essential Socialist principle. And yet the exigencies of a
successful propaganda among small landowners or tenants who either
want to become landowners or to secure a lease that would amount
to almost the same thing, is such as to drive the Appeal into a posi-
tion, not only as to the land question, but also to other questions,
that has in it many elements of "State Socialism."

A special propaganda edition (January 27, 1902) is typical. Along
with many revolutionary declarations, such as that Socialism aims
not only at the socialization of the means of production, but also at
the socialization of power, we find others that would be accepted by
any capitalist "State Socialist." Government activities as to schools
and roads are mentioned as examples of socialization, while that
part of the land still in the hands of our present capitalist govern-
ment is referred to as being socialized. The use of vacant and un-
used lands (with "a fair return" for this use) by city, township, and
county officials in order to raise and sell products and furnish em-
ployment, as was done by the late Mayor Pingree in Detroit, and
even the public ownership of freight and passenger automobiles, are
spoken of as "purely Socialist propositions." And, finally, the
laws of Oklahoma are said to permit socialization without a national
victory of the Socialists, though they provide merely that a munici-
pality may engage in any legitimate business enterprise, and could
easily be circumscribed by state constitutional provisions or by
federal courts if real Socialists were about to gain control of
municipalities and State legislature. For such Socialists would
not be satisfied merely to demand the abolition of private landlordism
and unemployment as the Appeal does in this instance, since
both of these "institutions" are already marked for destruction by
"State capitalism," but would plan public employment at wages

322 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

so high as to make private employment unprofitable and all but
impossible, so high that the self-employing farmer even would more
and more frequently prefer to quit his farm and go to work on a
municipal, State, or county farm.

The probable future course of the Party, however, is fore-
shadowed by the suggestions made by Mr. Simons in the
report referred to, which, though not yet voted upon, seemed
to meet general approval : —

"With the writers of the Communist Manifesto we agree
in the principle of the 'application of all rents of land to
public purposes.' To this end we advocate the taxing of all
lands to their full rental value, the income therefrom to be
applied to the establishment of industrial plants for the pre-
paring of agricultural products for final consumption, such as
packing houses, canneries, cotton gins, grain elevators, storage
and market facilities." (a)

There is no doubt that Mr. Simons here indorses the most
promising line of agrarian reform under capitalism. But
there is no reason why capitalist collectivism may not take
up this policy when it reaches a somewhat more advanced
stage. The tremendous benefits the cities will secure by the
gradual appropriation of the unearned increment will almost
inevitably suggest it to the country also. This will immensely
hasten the development of agriculture and the numerical

(a) Mr. Simons's resolution also contains another proposition, seemingly at
variance with this, which would postpone Socialist action indefinitely : —

"In the field of industry what the Socialist movement demands is the social
ownership and control of the socially operated means of production, not of
all means of production. Only to a very small extent is it [the land] likely
to be, for many years to come, a socially operated means of production."

On the contrary, it would seem that "State Socialism," the basis
on which Socialists must build, to say nothing of Socialism, will bring about
a large measure of government ownership of land in the interest of the farmer
of the individually operated farm. Socialism, it is true, requires besides
government ownership, governmental operation, and recognizes that this is
practicable only as fast as agriculture becomes organized like other industries.
In the meanwhile it recognizes either in gradual government ownership or
in the taxation of the unearned increment, the most progressive steps that
can be undertaken by a capitalist government and supports them even where
there is no large-scale production or social operation. For "wherever indivi-
dual ownership is an agency of exploitation," to quote Mr. Simons's own
resolution, "then such ownership is opposed by Socialism," i.e. wherever labor
is employed.

The Socialist solution, it is true, can only come with "social operation,"
but that does not mean that Socialism has nothing to say to-day. It still
favors the reforms of collectivist capitalism. Where extended national
ownership of the land is impracticable there remains the taxation of the
future unearned increment. To drop this "demand" also is to subordinate
Socialism completely to small-scale capitalism.

THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 323

increase of an agricultural working class. What is even more
important is that it will teach the agricultural laborers that
far more is to be gained by the political overthrow of the small
capitalist employing farmers and by claiming a larger share
of the benefit of these public funds than by attempting the
more and more difficult task of saving up the sum needed for
acquiring a small farm or leasing one for a long term from the
government.

The governmental appropriation of agricultural rent and
its productive expenditure on agriculture will in all probabil-
ity be carried out, even if not prematurely promised at the
present time, by collectivist capitalism. Moreover, while
this great reform will strengthen Socialism as indicated, it
will strengthen capitalism still more, especially in the earlier
stages of the change. Socialists recognize, with Henry
George, that ground rent may be nationalized and "tyranny
and spoliation be continued." For if the present capitalistic
state gradually became the general landlord, either through
the extension of the national domain or through land taxation,
greater resources would be put into the hands of existing class
governments than by any other means. If, for example, the
Socialists opposed the government bank in Germany they
might dread even more the present government becoming
the universal landlord, though it would be useless to try to
prevent it.

It is clear that such a reform is no more a step in Socialism
or in the direction of Socialism than the rest of the capitalist
collectivist program. But it is a step in the development
of capitalism and will ultimately bring society to a point
where the Socialists, if they have in the meanwhile prepared
themselves, may be able to gain the supreme power over
government and industry.

Socialists do not feel that the agricultural problem will be
solved at all for a large part of the agriculturists (the laborers)
nor in the most satisfactory manner for the majority (self-
employing farmers) until the whole problem of capitalism
is solved. The agricultural laborers they claim as their own
to-day; the conditions I have reviewed lead them to hope
also for a slow but steady progress among the smaller
farmers.

CHAPTER III
SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS"

IF the majority of Socialists are liberal in their conception
of what constitutes the "working class," they are equally
broad in their view as to what classes must be reckoned
among its opponents. They are aware that on the other
side in this struggle will be found all those classes that are
willing to serve capitalism or hope to rise into its ranks.

In its narrow sense the term "capitalist class" may be re-
stricted to mean mere idlers and parasites, but this is not the
sense in which Socialists usually employ it. Mere idlers play
an infinitely less important part in the capitalist world than
active exploiters. It is even probable that in the course of
a strenuous struggle the capitalists themselves may gradually
tax wholly idle classes out of existence and so actually
strengthen the more active capitalists by ridding them of this
burden. Active exploiters may pass some of their time in
idleness and frivolous consumption, without actual degenera-
tion, without becoming mere parasites. All exploitation is
parasitism, but it does not follow that every exploiter is
nothing more than a parasite. He may work feverishly at
the game of exploitation and, as is very common with capi-
talists, may be devoted to it for its own sake and for the power
it brings rather than for the opportunity to consume in luxury
or idleness. If pure parasitism were the object of attack,
as certain Socialists suppose it to be, all but an infinitesimal
minority of mankind would already be Socialists.

Nor do Socialists imagine that the capitalist ranks will
ever be restricted to the actual capitalists, those whose in-
come is derived chiefly from their possessions. Take, for
example, the class of the least skilled and poorest-paid laborers
such as the so-called "casual laborers," the "submerged
tenth" — those who, though for the most part not paupers,
are in extreme poverty and probably are unable to maintain
themselves in a state of industrial efficiency even for that low-
paid and unskilled labor to which they are accustomed. Mr.

324

SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS 'J 325

H. G. Wells and other observers feel that this class is likely to
put even more obstacles in the path of Socialism than the
rich: "Much more likely to obstruct the way to Socialism,"
says Mr. Wells, "is the ignorance, the want of courage, the
stupid want of imagination in the very poor, too shy and
timid and clumsy to face any change they can evade ! But
even with them popular education is doing its work ; and I
do not fear but that in the next generation we will find Social-
ists even in the slums." (1)

"Misery and poverty are so absolutely, degrading, and
exercise such a paralyzing effect over the nature of men, that
no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering," says
Oscar Wilde. "They have to be told of it by other people,
and they often entirely disbelieve them. What is said by
great employers of labor against agitators is unquestionably
true. Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people,
who come down to some perfectly contented class of the com-
munity and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them." (2)
It is the "very poor" who disbelieve the agitators. They
must be embraced in every plan of social reconstruction, but
they cannot be of much aid. The least skilled must rather
be helped and those who can and do help them best are not
any of their "superiors," but their blood brothers and sisters
of the economic class just above them — the great mass, of
the unskilled workers.

The class of casual workers and the able-bodied but chroni-
cally under-employed play a very serious role in Socialist
politics. It is the class from which, as Socialists point out,
professional soldiers, professional strike breakers, and, to some
extent, the police are drawn. Among German Socialists it
is called the "lumpen proletariat," and both for the present
and future is looked at with the greatest anxiety. It is not
thought possible that any considerable portion of it will be
brought into the Socialist camp in the near future, though
some progress has been made, as with every other element of
the working class. It is acknowledged that it tends to be-
come more numerous, constantly recruited as it is from the
increasing class of servants and other dependents of the rich
and well-to-do.

But Socialists understand that the mercenary hirelings
drawn from this class, and directly employed to keep them
"in order," are less dangerous than the capitalists' camp
followers. Bernard Shaw calls this second army of depend-

326 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ents "the parasitic proletariat." But he explains that he
means not that they do not earn their living, but that their
labor is unproductive. They are parasitic only in the sense
that their work is done either for parasites or for the parasitical
consumption of active capitalists. Nor is there any sharp
line between proletarian and middle class in this element,
since parts of both classes are equally conscious of their de-
pendence. Shaw makes these points clear. His only error
is to suppose that Socialists and believers in the class war
theory, have failed to recognize them.

"Thus we find," says Shaw, "that what the idle man of property
does is to plunge into mortal sin against society. He not only with-
draws himself from the productive forces of the nation and quarters
himself on them as a parasite : he withdraws also a body of property-
less men and places them in the same position except that they have
to earn this anti social privilege by ministering to his wants and
whims. He thus creates and corrupts a class of workers — many of
them very highly trained and skilled, and correspondingly paid —
whose subsistence is bound up with his income. They are para-
sites on a parasite; and they defend the institution of private
property with a ferocity which startles their principal, who is often in
a speculative way quite revolutionary in his views. They knock
the class war theory into a cocked hat [I shall show below that class
war Socialists, on the contrary, have always recognized, the existence
of these facts, "whilst the present system lasts." — W. E. W.] by
forming a powerful conservative proletariat whose one economic
interest is that the rich should have as much money as possible;
and it is they who encourage and often compel the property owners
to defend themselves against an onward march of Socialism. Thus
we have the phenomenon that seems at first sight so amazing in
London: namely, that in the constituencies where the shop-
keepers pay the most monstrous rents, and the extravagance and
insolence of the idle rich are in fullest view, no Socialist — nay,
no Progressive — has a chance of being elected to the municipality
or to Parliament. The reason is that these shopkeepers live by
fleecing the rich as the rich live by fleecing the poor. The million-
aire who has preyed upon Bury and Bottle until no workman there
has more than his week's sustenance in hand, and many of them have
not even that, is himself preyed upon in Bond Street, Pall Mall,
and Longacre.

"But the parasites, the West End tradesman, the West End pro-
fessional man, the schoolmaster, the Ritz hotel keeper, the horse
dealer and trainer, the impresario and his guinea stalls, and the
ordinary theatrical manager with his half -guinea ones, the hunts-
man, the jockey, the gamekeeper, the gardener, the coachman, the
huge mass of minor shopkeepers and employees who depend on these

SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS '! 327

or who, as their children, have been brought up with a little crust
of conservative prejudices which they call their politics and morals
and religion : all these give to Parliamentary and social conservatism
its real fighting force; and the more 'class conscious' we make
them, the more they will understand that their incomes, whilst the
present system lasts, are bound up with those of the proprietors
whom Socialism would expropriate. And as many of them are
better fed, better mannered, better educated, more confident and
successful than the productive proletariat, the class war is not going
to be a walkover for the Socialists. " (3)

If we take into account both this "parasitic proletariat"
and the "lumpen proletariat" previously referred to, it is
clear that when the Socialists speak of a class struggle against
the capitalists, they do not expect to be able to include in their
ranks all "the people" nor even all the wage earners. This
is precisely one of the things that distinguishes them most
sharply from a merely populistic movement. Populist
parties expect to include all classes of the "common people,"
and every numerically important class of capitalists. Social-
ists understand that they can never rely on the small capi-
talist except when he has given up all hope of maintaining
himself as such, and that they are facing not only the whole
capitalist class, but also their hirelings and dependents.

Socialists as a whole have never tended either to a narrowly
exclusive nor to a vaguely inclusive policy. Nor have their
most influential writers, like Marx and Liebknecht, given the
wage earners a privileged position in the movement. I have
quoted from Liebknecht. "Just as the democrats make a
sort of a fetish of the words 'the people,' " wrote Marx to the
Communists on resigning from the organization in 1851, "so
you may make one of the word 'proletariat.'"

But it cannot be denied that many of Marx's followers have
ignored this warning, and the worship of the words "prole-
tariat" or "working class" is still common in some Socialist
quarters. Recently Kautsky wrote that the Socialist Party,
besides occupying itself with the interests of the manual
laborers, "must also concern itself with all social questions,
but that its attitude on these questions is determined by the in-
terests of the manual laborers."

"The Socialist Party," he continued, "is forced by its class
position to expand its struggle against its own exploitation
and oppression into a struggle against all forms of exploitation
and oppression, to broaden its struggle for class interests into

328 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

a struggle for liberty and justice for all members of the com-
munity." According to this interpretation, the Socialist
Party, starting out from the standpoint of the economic
interests of the "manual laborers," comes to represent the
interests of all classes, except the capitalists. We may doubt
as to whether the other non-capitalist classes will take kindly
to this subordination or "benevolent assimilation" by the
manual workers. Kautsky seems to have no question on this
matter, however; for he considers that the abolition of the
oppression and exploitation of the wage earners, the class
at the bottom, can only be effected by the abolition of all ex-
ploitation and oppression, and that therefore "all friends of
universal liberty and justice, whatever class they may spring
from, are compelled to join the proletariat and to fight its
class struggles." (4) Even if this is true, these other classes
will demand that they should have an equal voice in carrying
on this struggle in proportion to their numbers, and Socialist
parties have usually (though not always) given them that
equal voice.

The kernel of the working class, "the layers of the industrial
proletariat which have reached political self-consciousness,"
provides the chief supporters of the Socialist movement,
according to Kautsky, although the latter is the representa-
tive "not alone of the industrial wage workers, but of all the
working and exploited layers of the community, that is, the
great majority of the total population, what one ordinarily
calls 'the people.'" While Socialism is to represent all the
producing and exploited classes, the industrial proletariat
is thus considered as the model to which the others must be
shaped and as by some special right or virtue it is on all
occasions to take the forefront in the movement. This posi-
tion leads inevitably to a considerably qualified form of
democracy.

"The backbone of the party will always be the fighting prole-
tariat, whose qualities will determine its character, whose strength
will determine its power," says Kautsky. "Bourgeois and peasants
are highly welcome if they will attach themselves to us and march
with us, but the proletariat will always show the way.

"But if not only wage earners but also small peasants and small
capitalists, artisans, middle-men of all kinds, small officials, and so
forth — in short, the whole so-called ' common people ' — formed
the masses out of which Social Democracy recruits its adherents,
we must not forget that these classes, with the exception of the class-

SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS': 329

conscious wage-earners, are also a recruiting ground for our oppo-
nents ; their influence on these classes has been and still is to-day the
chief ground of their political power.

"To grant political rights to the people, therefore, by no means
necessarily implies the protection of the interests of the proletariat
or those of social evolution. Universal suffrage, as it is known, has
nowhere brought about a Social Democratic majority, while it may
give more reactionary majorities than a qualified suffrage under
the same circumstances. It may put aside a liberal government only
to put in its place a conservative or catholic one. . . .

"Nevertheless the proletariat must demand democratic institu-
tions under all circumstances, for the same reasons that, once it has
obtained political power, it can only use its own class rule for the
purpose of putting an end to all class rule. It is the bottommost
of the social classes. It cannot gain political rights, at least not
in its entirety, except if everybody gets them. Each of the other
classes may become privileged under certain circumstances, but not
the proletariat. The Social Democracy, the party of the class-
conscious proletariat, is therefore the surest support of democratic
efforts, much surer than the bourgeois democracy.

"But if the Social Democracy is also the most strenuous fighter
for democracy, it cannot share the latter's illusions. It must always
be conscious of the fact that every popular right which it wins is a
weapon not only for itself, but also for its opponents ; it must there-
fore under certain circumstances understand that democratic achieve-
ments are more useful at first to the enemy than to itself ; but only
at first. For in the long run the introduction of democratic institu-
tions in the State can only turn out to the profit of Social Democracy.
They necessarily make its struggle easier, and lead it to victory.
The militant proletariat has so much confidence in social evolution,
so much confidence in itself, that it fears no struggle, not even with
a superior power; it only wants a field of battle on which it can
move freely. The democratic State offers such a field of battle;
there the final decisive struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat
can best be fought out."

The reader might understand this somewhat vacillating
position on the whole to favor democracy, but only a few
pages further on Kautsky explains his reasons for opposing
the initiative and referendum, and we see that when the point
of action arrives, his democratic idealism is abandoned : —

"In our opinion it follows from the preceding that the initiative
and referendum do not belong to those democratic institutions which
must be furthered by the proletariat in the interest of its own
struggle for emancipation everywhere and under all circumstances.
The referendum and initiative are institutions which may be very
useful under certain circumstances if one does not overvalue these

330 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

uses, but under other circumstances may cause great harm. The
introduction of the initiative and referendum is, therefore, not to
be striven for everywhere and under all circumstances, but only in
those places where certain conditions are fulfilled.

"Among these conditions precedent we reckon, above all, the
preponderance of the city population over that of the country —
a condition which at the present moment has only been reached in
England. A further condition precedent is a highly developed
political party life which has taken hold of the great masses of the
population, so that the tendency of direct legislation to break up
parties and to bridge over party opposition are no more to be feared.

"But the weightiest condition precedent is the lack of an over-
whelmingly centralized governmental power, standing indepen-
dently against the people's representatives." (5) (My italics.)

The first condition mentioned I have discussed in the pre-
vious chapter ; the second indicates that Kautsky, speaking
for many German Socialists, for the present at least, puts
party above democracy.

The industrial proletariat is supposed to have the mission
of saving society. Even when it is not politically "self-
conscious," or educated to see the great role it must play in
the present and future transformation of society, it is supposed
that it is compelled ultimately "by the logic of events" to fill
this role and attempt the destruction of capitalism and the
socialization of capital. This prediction may ultimately prove
true, but time is the most vital element in any calculation, and
Kautsky himself acknowledges that the industrial proletariat
"had existed a long time before giving any indication of its
independence," and that during all this long period "no
militant proletariat was in existence."

The chief practical reason for relying so strongly on the
industrial wage earners as stated by Bebel and other Socialists
is undoubtedly that "the proletariat increases more and more
until it forms the overwhelming majority of the nation."
No doubt, in proportion as this tendency exists, the impor-
tance of gathering certain parts of the middle class into the
movement becomes less and less, and the statement quoted,
if strongly insisted upon, even suggests a readiness to attempt
to get along entirely without these elements. The figures
of the Census indicate that in this country, at least, we are
some time from the point when the proletariat will constitute
even a bare majority, and that it is not likely to form an
overwhelming majority for decades to come. But the
European view is common here also.

SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS" 331

The moderate Vandervelde also says that the Socialist
program has been "formulated by or for the workingmen of
large-scale industry." (6) This may be true, but we are not
as much interested to know who formulated the program of
the movement as to understand its present aim. Its aim,
it is generally agreed, is to organize into a single movement
all anti-capitalistic elements, alj. those who want to abolish
capitalism, those exploited classes that are not too crushed
to revolt, those whose chief means of support is socially
useful labor and not the ownership of capital or possession
of some privileged position or office. In this movement it is
generally conceded by Socialists that the workingmen of
industry play the central part. But they are neither its sole
origin nor is their welfare its sole aim.

The best known of the Socialist critics of Marxism, Edward
Bernstein, shares with some of Marx's most loyal disciples in
this excessive idealization of the industrial working class. In-
deed, he says, with more truth than he realizes, that in propor-
tion as revolutionary Marxism is relegated to the background
it is necessary to affirm more sharply the class character of the
Party. That is to say, if a Socialist Party abandons the
principles of Socialism, then the only way it can be distin-
guished from other movements is by the fact that it embraces
other elements of the population, that it is a class movement.
But Socialism is something more than this, it is a class move-
ment of a certain definite character, composed of classes that
are naturally selected and united, owing to certain definite
characteristics.

"The social democracy," says Bernstein, "can become the
people's party, but only in the sense that the workingmen
form the essential kernel around which are grouped social
elements having identical interests. ... Of all the social
classes opposed to the capitalist class, the working class alone
represents an invincible factor of social progress," and so-
cial democracy "addresses itself principally to the workers."
(My italics.)

Perhaps the most orthodox Socialist organ in America,
and the ablest representative in this country of the inter-
national aspects of the movement (the New Yorker Volk-
szeitung), insists that "the Socialist movement consists in the
fusion of the Socialist doctrine with the labor movement and
in nothing else," and says that students and even doctors
have little importance for the Party. The less orthodox but

332 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

more revolutionary Western Clarion, the Socialist organ of
British Columbia, where the Socialists form the chief opposi-
tion party in the legislature, asserts boldly, "We have no
leaning towards democracy; all we want is a short supply
of working-class autocracy."

Some of the ultra-revolutionists have gone so far in their
hostility to all social classes that do not work with their hands,
that they have completed the circle and flown into the arms
of the narrowest and least progressive of trade unionists —
the very element against which they had first reacted. The
Western Socialist, Thomas Sladden, throwing into one single
group all the labor organizations from the most revolutionary
to the most conservative, such as the railway brotherhoods,
says that all "are in reality part of the great Socialist move-
ment," and claims that whenever "labor" goes into politics,
this also is a step towards Socialism, though Socialist prin-
ciples are totally abandoned. Mayor McCarthy of San
Francisco, for instance, satisfied his requirements. "Mc-
Carthy declares himself a friend of capital," says Sladden,
but, he asks defiantly, "Does any sane capitalist believe
him ?" Here we see one of the most revolutionary agitators
becoming more and more "radical" until he has completed
the circle and come back, not only to "labor right or wrong,"
but even to "labor working in harmony with capital."

" The skilled workingman," he says, " is not a proletarian.
He has an interest to conserve, he has that additional skill
for which he receives compensation in addition to his ordi-
nary labor power."

Mr. Sladden adds that the real proletarian is "uncultured
and uncouth in appearance," that he has "no manners and
little education," and that his religion is "the religion of
hate." Of course this is a mere caricature of the attitude of
the majority of Socialists.

Some of the partisans of revolutionary unionism in this
country are little less extreme. The late Louis Duchez,
for example, reminds us that Marx spoke of the proletariat
as "the lowest stratum of our present society," those "who
have nothing to lose but their chains," and that he said that
"along with the constantly diminishing number of the mag-
nates of capital who usurp and monopolize all the advantages
of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery,
oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation ; but with this,
too, grows the revolt of the working class." It is true that

SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASSY 333

Marx said these things and said them with emphasis. But
he did not wish to make any rigid or dogmatic definition of
"the proletariat" and much that he has said pointed to an
entirely different conception than would be gained from these
quotations.

In speaking of "the lowest stratum of society" Marx was
thinking, not of a community divided into numerous strata,
but chiefly of three classes, the large capitalists, the workers,
and the middle class. It was the lowest of these three, and
not the lowest of their many subdivisions, that he had in
mind. From the first the whole Socialist movement has
recognized the almost complete hopelessness, as an aid to
Socialism, of the lowest stratum in the narrow sense, of what
is called the "lumpen proletariat," the bulk of the army of
beggars and toughs. Mr. Duchez undoubtedly would have
accepted this point, for he wishes to say that the Socialist
movement must be advanced by the organization of unions
not among this class, but among the next lowest, economically
speaking, the great mass of unskilled workers. This argument,
also, that the unskilled have a better strategic position than
the skilled on account of their solidarity and unity is surely
a doubtful one. European Socialists, as a rule, have reached
the opposite conclusion, namely, that it is the comparatively
skilled workers, like those of the railways, who possess the
only real possibility of leading in a general strike movement
(see Chapters V and VI).

CHAPTER IV
SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS

ONE of the grounds on which it is proposed by some Social-
ists to give manual labor a special and preferred place in the
movement is that it is supposed to be the only numerically
important non-capitalist element that is at all well organized
or even organizable. Let us see, then, to what degree labor
is organized and what are the characteristics of this organi-
zation.

First, the labor unions represent manual wage earners
almost exclusively — not by intention, but as a matter of
fact. They include only an infinitesimal proportion of small
employers, self-employing artisans, or salaried employees.

Second, the unions by no means include all the manual
wage earners, and only in a few industries do they include a
majority. Those organized are, as a rule, the more developed
and prosperous, the skilled or comparatively skilled workers.

Third, their method of action is primarily that of the strike
and boycott — economic and not political. They demand
certain legislation and in several cases have put political
parties in the field ; they exert a political pressure in favor of
government employees. But their chief purpose, even when
they do these things, is to develop an organization that can
strike and boycott effectively ; and to secure only such politi-
cal and civil rights as are needed for this purpose.

The unions are primarily economic, and the Socialist Party
is primarily political — both, to have any national power,
must embrace a considerable proportion of the same industrial
wage-earning class. It is evident that conflict between the
two organizations is unnecessary and we find, indeed, that it
arises only in exceptional cases. Many Socialists, however,
look upon the unions primarily as an economic means, more
or less important, of advancing political Socialism — while
many unionists regard the Socialist parties primarily as po-
litical instruments for furthering the economic action of the
unions.

334

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 335

There are several groups of Socialists, on the other hand,
who ascribe to the economic action of the unions a part in
attaining Socialism as important or more important than that
they ascribe to the political action of the party. These in-
clude, first, all those for whom Socialism is to be brought about
almost exclusively by wage earners, whether by political or
by economic action; second, those who do not believe the
capitalists will allow the ballot to be used for anti-capitalistic
purposes ; third, those who believe that, in spite of all that
capitalists and capitalistic governments can do, strikes and
boycotts cannot be circumvented and in;the end are irresistible.

Other Socialists, agreeing that economic action, and there-
fore labor unions, both of the existing kind and of that more
revolutionary type now in the process of formation, are indis-
pensable, still look upon the Socialist Party as the chief in-
strument of Socialism. As these include nearly all Party mem-
bers who are not unionists as well as a considerable part of the
unionists, they are perhaps a majority — internationally.

As the correct relationship between Party and unions, Mr.
Debs has indorsed the opinion of Professor Herron, who, he
said, "sees the trend of development and arrives at conclu-
sions that are sound and commend themselves to the thought-
ful consideration of all trade unionists and Socialists."
Professor Herron says that the Socialist is needed to educate
the unionists to see their wider interests : —

"He is not to do this by seeking to commit trade-union bodies
to the principles of Socialism. Resolutions or commitments of this
sort accomplish little good. Nor is he to do it by taking a servile
attitude towards organized labor nor by meddling with the details
or the machinery of the trade unions. It is better to leave the trade
unions to their distinctive work, as the workers' defense against the
encroachments of capitalism, as the economic development of the
worker against the economic development of the capitalist, giving
unqualified support and sympathy to the struggles of the organized
worker to sustain himself in his economic sphere. But let the So-
cialist also build up the character and harmony and strength of the
Socialist movement as a political force, that it shall command the
respect and confidence of the worker, irrespective of his trade or his
union obligations. It is urgent that we so keep in mind the dif-
ference between the two developments that neither shall cripple the
other." (1)

Here is a statement of the relation of the two movements
that corresponds closely to the most mature and widespread

336 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Socialist opinion and to the decisions of the International
Socialist Congresses.

This view also meets that of the unions in most countries.
The President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers,
understands this thoroughly and quotes with approval the
action taken recently by the labor unions in Sweden, Hungary,
and Italy, which demand the enforcement of this policy of
absolute ' ' neutrality. ' ' Formerly the federation of the unions
of Sweden, for example, agreed to use their efforts to have
the local unions become a part of the local organization of the
Social Democratic Party. These words providing for this
policy were struck out of the constitution by the Convention
of 1909, which at the same time adopted (by a considerable
majority) a resolution that "by this decision it was not in-
tended to break up the unity and solidarity of labor's forces,
for the convention considers the Social Democratic Party as
the natural expression of the political ambitions of the
Swedish workers." A similar relation prevails in nearly
every country of the Continent.

The Secretary of the German Federation (who is its highest
officer) — a man who is at the same time an active Socialist, —
has defined accurately the relation between the two organi-
zations in that country. He says that the unions cannot
accomplish their purposes without securing political repre-
sentation " through a Party that is active in legislative bodies."
This is also the view now of the British unions, which in over-
whelming majority support the Labor Party. And they do
this for the same purposes mentioned by Legien : to protect
the working people from excessive exploitation, to enact into
law the advantages already won by the unions, and so to
smooth the way for better labor conditions. Similarly, the
American Federation of Labor secures representation on
legislative bodies, and hesitates to form a national Labor
Party, not on principle, but only because American conditions
do not in most localities promise that it would be effective.

Mr. Mitchell expresses the position of the American Federa-
tion when he says that the "wage earners should in proportion
to their strength secure the nomination and the election of a
number of representatives to the governing bodies of city,
State, and nation," but that "a third Labor Party is not for
the present desirable, because it would not obtain a majority
and could not therefore force its will upon the community at
large." (2) The European Socialists would perhaps not

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 337

understand the political principle of our governmental system,
which requires a plurality in the State or nation in order
to obtain immediate results. For in this country the more
important branches of the government are the executive and
judges, and these, unlike the legislatures, cannot as a rule
be divided, and therefore give no opportunity for the repre-
sentation of minorities, and are necessarily elected by State or
national pluralities and usually by majorities. In the monar-
chical countries of the Continent either such officials are not
elected, or their powers are circumscribed, and even England
lies in this respect halfway between those countries and the
United States. What Mr. Mitchell says is in so far true;
it would certainly require a large number of elections before
a party beginning on the basis of a minority of representatives
in Congress or the legislatures could win enough control over
the executive and judges to "force its will upon the commu-
nity at large." Mr. Mitchell and the other leaders of the
Federation are, it is seen, unwilling to undertake a campaign
so long and arduous, and, since they have no means of at-
tracting the votes of any but wage-earning voters, so doubtful
as to its outcome.

Mr. Mitchell says that the workingmen in a separate party
could not even secure a respectable minority of the legislators. The
numerical strength of the Unions in proportion to the voting popu-
lation is scarcely greater than it was when he wrote (1903), and what
he said then holds true as ever to-day.

Mr. Gompers has also stated that labor would not be able to
secure more than twenty-five or fifty Congressmen by independent
political action. This is undoubtedly true, and we may take it for
granted, therefore, that, unless the unions most unexpectedly in-
crease their strength, there will be no national or even State-wide
Trade Union or Labor Party in this country, though the San Fran-
cisco example of a city Labor party may be repeated now and then,
and State organizations of the Socialist Party, which enjoy a large
measure of autonomy, may occasionally, without changing their
present names, reduce themselves to mere trade-union parties in the
narrow sense of the term. President Gompers has claimed that 80
per cent of the voting members of the American Federation of
Labor followed his advice in the election of 1908, which was, in
nearly every case, to vote the Democratic ticket. There were not
over 2,000,000 members of the Federation at this time, and of these
(allowing for women, minors, and non-voting foreigners) there were
not more than 1,500,000 voters. About 60 per cent of this number
have always voted Democratic, so that if Mr. Gompers's claim were
z

338 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

conceded it would mean a change of no more than 300,000 votes.
It is true that such a number of voters could effect the election or
defeat of a great many Democrats or Republican Congressmen, but,
as Mr. Gompers says, it could only elect a score or two of Inde-
pendents, a number which, as the example of Populism has shown,
would be impotent under our political system. Moreover, as such
a Congressional group would be situated politically not in the
middle, but at one of the extremes, it could never hold the balance
of power in this or any other country until it became a majority.

Mr. Mitchell is careful to qualify his opposition to the third
party (or Labor Party) idea. He writes: "I wish it to be
understood that this refers only to the immediate policy of
the unions. One cannot see what the future of the dominant
parties in the United States will be, and should it come to
pass that the two great American political parties oppose labor
legislation, as they now favor it, it would be the imperative
duty of unionists to form a third party in order to secure
some measure of reform." (2) Certainly both parties are
becoming more and more willing to grant "some measure"
of labor reform, so that Mr. Mitchell is unlikely to change
his present position.

Whether the unions form a separate party or not, is to them
a matter not of principle, but of ways and means, of time and
place. Where they are very weak politically they seek only to
have their representatives in other parties; where they are
stronger they may form a party of their own to cooperate
with the other parties and secure a share in government;
where they are strongest they will seek to gain control over
a party that plays for higher stakes, brings to the unions the
support of other elements, and remains in opposition until
it can secure undivided control over government, e.g. the
Socialist Party. Whether the unions operate through all
parties or a Labor Party or a Socialist Party, is of secondary
importance also to Socialists ; what is of consequence is the
character of the unions, and the effect of their political policy
on the unions themselves. In all three cases the principles
of the unions may be at bottom the same, and in any of the
three cases they may be ready to use the Socialist Party for
the sole purpose of securing a modest improvement of their
wages — even obstructing other Party activities — as some
of the German union leaders have done. They may also use
a Labor Party for the same purpose — as in Great Britain.
Or they may develop a political program without really

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 339

favoring any political party or having any distinctive polit-
ical aim — as in the United States.

The -labor unions, even the most conservative, have always
and everywhere had some kind of a political program. They
have naturally favored the right to organize, to strike and
boycott, free speech and a free press. They have demanded
universal suffrage, democratic constitutions, and other meas-
ures to increase the political power of their members. They
have favored all economic reform policies of which working
people got a share, even if a disproportionately small one, and
all forms of taxation that lightened their burdens. (a> And,
finally, they have usually centered their attacks on the most
powerful of their enemies, whether Emperor, Church, army,
landlords, or -large capitalists.

In economic and political reform, the American unions,
like those of other countries, support all progressive measures,
including the whole "State Socialist" program. As to polit-
ical machinery, they favor, of course, every proposal that can
remove constitutional checks and give the majority control
over the government, such as the easy amendment of con-
stitutions and the right to recall judges and all other officials
by majority vote. Like the Socialists, they welcome the
"State Socialist" labor program, government insurance for

(a) Miss Hughan in her "American Socialism," p. 220,'quotes an expression
of mine (see the New York Call, March 22, 1910) in which I said that "petty
reforms never have aroused and never will arouse the enthusiasm of the
working class and do not permit of its cooperation, but leave everything in
the hands of a few self-appointed leaders."

Miss Hughan herself points out that I have never considered all so-called
reforms as petty (see "American Socialism of the Present Day," p. 216) and
quotes (on p. 199) an expression from the very article above mentioned
in which I define what reforms I consider are of special importance to the
wage earners, namely, those protecting the strike, the boycott, free speech,
and civil government. I even mentioned labor legislation on a national
scale. The petty reforms I referred to were State labor laws. These will
not only be carried out by non-Socialists, but receive very little attention from
active labor bodies such as the city and State federations, which are almost
wholly absorbed in the greater and more difficult task^of defending the strike,
boycott, free speech, and sometimes civil government. Labor will do every-
thing in its power to promote child labor laws, workingmen's compensation
etc., except to give them its chief attention instead of the struggle for higher
wages and the rights needed to carry it on effectively. As a consequence
these matters are left to a few selfish or unselfish persons, who are "self-
appointed leaders," even when the unions consent to leave these particular
matters in their hands. For active cooperation of the masses in the legal,
economic, and political intricacies of such legislation is not only undesirable,
but impossible under the present system of society and government. Labor
must govern itself through instructed delegates, while such work can be done
only by representatives, who must often have the power to act without further
consultation with those who elected them.

340 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

workingmen against old age, sickness, accidents, and un-
employment, a legal eight-hour day, a legal minimum wage,
industrial education, the prohibition of child labor, etc.

The unions and the parties they use also join in the effort
of the small capitalist investors and borrowers, consumers and
producers, to control the large interests — the central feature
of the "State Socialist" policy. But the conservative unions
do not stop with such progressive, if non-Socialist, measures ;
they take up the cause of the smaller capitalists also as com-
petitors. The recent attack of the Federation of Labor on the
"Steel Trust" is an example. The presidents of the majority
of the more important unions, who signed this document, be-
came the partisans not only of small capitalists who buy from
the trust, sell to it, or invest in its securities, but also of the
unsuccessful competitors that these combinations are eliminat-
ing. The Federation here spoke of "the American institution
of unrestricted production," which can mean nothing less than
unrestricted competition, and condemned the "Steel Trust"
because it controls production, whereas the regulation or
control of production is precisely the most essential thing to
be desired in a progressive industrial society — a control, of
course, to be turned as soon as possible to the benefit of all
the people.

The Federation's attack was not only economically re-
actionary, but it was practically disloyal to millions of em-
ployees. It applies against the "trust," which happens to
be unpopular, arguments which apply even more strongly to
competitive business. The trust, it said, corrupts legislative
bodies and is responsible for the high tariff. As if all these
practices had not begun before the "trusts" came into being,
as if the associated manufacturers are not even more strenu-
ous advocates of all the tariffs — which are life and death
matters to them — than the "trusts," which might very well
get along without them. Finally, the Federation accuses the
"Steel Trust" of an especially oppressive policy towards its
working people, apparently forgetting its arch enemy, the
manufacturer's association. It is notorious, moreover, that
the smallest employers, such as the owners of sweat shops,
nearly always on the verge of bankruptcy and sometimes on
the verge of starvation themselves, are harder on their labor
than the industrial combinations, and that in competitive
establishments, like textile mills, the periods when employers
are forced to close down altogether are far more frequent,

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 341

making the average wages the year round far below those
paid by any of the trusts. The merest glance at the statistics
of the United States census will be sufficient evidence to prove
this. For not only are weekly wages lower in the textile mills
and several other industries than they are in the steel corpora-
tion, but also employment year in and year out is much more
irregular. Here we see the unions adopting the politics of
the small capitalists, not only on its constructive or "State
Socialist" side, but also in its reactionary tendency, now being
rapidly outgrown, of trying to restore competition, and actually
working against their own best interests for this purpose.

A writer in the Federationist demands "a reduction of railway
charges, express rates, telegraph rates, telephone rates," and a
radical change in the great industrial corporations such as the Steel
Trust, which is to be subjected to thorough regulation. Swollen
fortunes are to be broken up, together with the power of the monop-
olists, of "the gamblers in the necessities of life, etc." (3) In this
writer's opinion (Mr. Shibley), the monopolists are the chief cause
of high prices and the only important anti-social group, and all the
other classes of society have a common interest with the wage
earners. But business interests, manufacturers, the owners of large
farms, and employers in lines where competition still prevails, would
also, with the fewest exceptions, take sides against the working
people in any great labor conflict — as the history of every modern
country for the past fifty years has shown. It is not "Big Business "
or "The Interests," but business in general, not monopolistic em-
ployers, but the whole employing class, against which the unions have
contended and always must contend — on the economic as well as
the political field. Mr. Gompers and his associates, like Mr. Bryan
and Senator La Follette, demand that the people shall rule, but they
all depend upon the hundreds of thousands of business men as allies,
who, if opposed to government by monopolies, are still more opposed
to government by their employees or by the consumers of their
products, and are certain to fight any political movement of which
they are a predominating part.

The American Federation of Labor, and the majority of
the labor unions comprising it, are thus seen to have a political
program scarcely distinguishable from that of the radical
wing of either of the large parties, — for it seeks little if any
more than to join in with the general movement against mo-
nopolists and large capitalists in a conflict that can never be
won or lost, since the leaders in the movement are themselves
indirectly and at the bottom a part of the capitalist class.

The President of the American Federation views this partly

342 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

reactionary and partly "State Socialist" program as being
directed against " capitalism." "The votes of courageous
and honest citizens in all civilized lands," says Mr. Gompers,
"are cutting away the capitalistic powers' privilege to lay
tribute on the producers. Capitalism, as a surviving form
of feudalism, — the power to deprive the laborer of his prod-
uct, — gives signs of expiring." (4) Democratic reform
and improvement in economic conditions are apparently
taken by Mr. Gompers as a sign that capitalism is expiring
and that society is progressing satisfactorily to the wage
earners. Although the constitution of the Federation says
that the world-wide "struggle between the capitalist and the
laborer" is a struggle between "oppressors and oppressed,"
Mr. Gompers gives the outside world to understand that the
unions have no inevitable struggle before them, but are as
interested in industrial peace as are the employers. He has
expressed his interpretation of the purpose of the Federation
in the single word "more." He sees progress and asks a share
for the unionists as each forward step is taken. He does not
ask that labor's share be increased in proportion to the prog-
ress made — to say nothing of asking that this share should
be made disproportionately large in order gradually to make
the distribution of income more equal. A capitalism in-
spired by a more enlightened selfishness might, without any
ultimate loss, grant all the Federation's present demands,
political as well as economic. Therefore, Mr. Gompers, quite
logically, does not see any necessity for an aggressive attitude.

"Labor unions," says Mr. John Mitchell, who takes a
similar view, "are for workmen, but against no one. They
are not hostile to employers, not inimical to the interests
of the general public. They are for a class, because that
class exists and has class interests, but the unions did not
create and do not perpetuate the class or its interests and
do not seek to evoke a class conflict." (5) Here it is recog-
nized that the working class exists as a class and has in-
terests of its own. But, if, as Mr. Mitchell adds, the
unions do not wish to perpetuate this class or its interests,
then surely they must see to it, as far as they are able, that
members of this class have equal industrial opportunities
with other citizens, and that its children should at least be
no longer compelled to remain members of a class from which,
as he expressly acknowledges, there is at present no escape.

Both Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell have gone to the

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 343

defense of the leading anti-Socialist organization in this
country, Civic Federation — and nothing could draw in
stronger colors than do their arguments the complete con-
flict of the Gompers-Mitchell labor union policy to that of the
Socialists. Mr. Gompers defends the Federation as worthy
of labor's respect on the ground that many of its most active
capitalist members have shown a sustained sincerity, "always
having in mind the rights and interests of labor," which is
the very antithesis to the Socialist claim that nobody will
always have in mind the rights and the interests of labor, ex-
cept the laborers — and least of all those who buy labor them-
selves, or are intimately associated with those who buy labor.

Mr. Mitchell says that through the Civic Federation many
employers have become convinced that their antagonism
to unions was based on prejudice, and have withdrawn their
opposition to the organization of the men in their plants.
No doubt this is strictly true. It shows that the unions had
been presented to the employers as being profitable to them.
This, Socialists would readily admit, might be the case with
some labor organizations as they have been shaped by leaders
like Mr. Mitchell and conferences like those of the Civic
Federation. To Socialists organizations that create this
impression of harmony of interests do exactly what is most
dangerous for the workers — that is, they make them less
conscious and assertive of their own interests.

The Civic Federation, composed in large part of prominent
capitalists and conservatives, endeavors to allay the discon-
tent of labor by intimate association with the officers of the
unions. Socialists have long recognized the tendency of
trade-union leaders to be persuaded by such methods to
the capitalist view. Eight years ago at Dresden, August
Bebel had already seen this danger, for. he placed in the same
class with the academic "revisionists" those former prole-
tarians who had been raised into higher positions and were
lost to the working classes through "intercourse with people
of the contrary tendency." It is this class of leaders, accord-
ing to the Socialists, which, up to the present, has dominated
the trade unions of Great Britain and the United States and
occasionally of other countries.

No Socialist has been more persistent in directing working-
class opinion against all such "leaders" than Mr. Debs, who
does not mince matters in this direction. "The American
Federation of Labor," he writes, "has numbers, but the

344 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

capitalist class do not fear the American Federation of Labor ;
quite the contrary. There is something wrong with that
form of unionism whose leaders are the lieutenants of capital-
ism; something is wrong with that form of unionism that
forms an alliance with such a capitalist combination as the
Civic Federation, whose sole purpose is to chloroform the
working class while the capitalist class go through their
pockets. . . . The old form of trade unionism no longer
meets the demands of the working class. The old trade
union has not only fulfilled its mission and outlived its use-
fulness, but is now positively reactionary, and is maintained,
not in the interest of the workers who support it, but in the
interest of the capitalist class who exploit the workers who
support it."

In a recent speech Mr. Debs related at length the Socialist
view as to how, in his opinion, this misleading of labor
leaders comes about : —

"There is an army of men who serve as officers, who are on the
salary list, who make a good living, keeping the working class
divided. They start out with good intentions as a rule. They
really want to do something to serve their fellows. They are elected
officers of a labor organization, and they change their clothes. They
now wear a white shirt and a standing collar. They change their
habits and their methods. They have been used to cheap clothes,
coarse fare, and to associating with their fellow workers. After
they have been elevated to official position, as if by magic they are
recognized by those who previously scorned them and held them in
contempt. They find that some of the doors that were previously
barred against them now swing inward, and they can actually put
their feet under the mahogany of the capitalist.

"Our common labor man is now a labor leader. The great
capitalist pats him on the back and tells him that he knew long ago
that he was a coming man, that it was a fortunate thing for the
workers of the world that he had been born, that in fact they had
long been waiting for just such a wise and conservative leader.
And this has a certain effect upon our new-made leader, and uncon-
sciously, perhaps, he begins to change — just as John Mitchell did
when Mark Hanna patted him on the shoulder and said, 'John, it
is a good thing that you are at the head of the miners. You are the
very man. You have the greatest opportunity a labor leader ever
had on this earth. You can immortalize yourself. Now is your
time.' Then John Mitchell admitted that this capitalist, who had
been pictured to him as a monster, was not half as bad as he had
thought he was ; that, in fact, he was a genial and companionable
gentleman. He repeats his visit the next day, or the next week,

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 345

and is introduced to some other distinguished person he had read
about, but never dreamed of meeting, and thus goes on the trans-
formation. All his dislikes disappear, and all feeling of antagonism
vanishes. He concludes that they are really most excellent people,
and, now that he has seen and knows them, he agrees with them
there is no necessary conflict between workers and capitalists.
And he proceeds to carry out this pet capitalist theory, and he can
only do it by betraying the class that trusted him and lifted him as
high above themselves as they could reach.

"It is true that such a leader is in favor with the capitalists;
that their newspapers write editorials about him and crown him a
great and wise leader; and that ministers of the gospel make his
name the text for their sermons, and emphasize the vital point that
if all labor leaders were such as he, there would be no objections to
labor organizations. And the leader feels himself flattered. And
when he is charged with having deserted the class he is supposed
to serve, he cries out that the indictment is brought by a discredited
labor leader. And that is probably true. The person who brings
a charge is very likely discredited. By whom ? By the capitalist
class, of course; and its press and pulpit and 'public' opinion.
And in the present state of the working class, when he is discredited
by the capitalists, he is at once repudiated by their wage slaves." (6)

Mr. Debs's attitude toward Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Gompers
is by no means exceptional among Socialists. Mr. Gompers
visited Europe in 1909, spoke at length in Paris and Berlin,
and was viewed by the majority of the European Socialists
and unionists almost exactly as he is by Mr. Debs. Among
other things he said there, was that the very kernel of the
difference between the European and the American labor
movement and the reason why the wages are so much better
in America than in Europe was the friendlier relations be-
tween the government and the working people in this coun-
try— this after all the recent court decisions against the
unions, decisions which, even when outwardly milder, have
precisely the same effect as the hostile legislation and admin-
istration of the Continent. Mr. Gompers, while in Europe,
said that it was unnecessary that governments and the work-
ing people should misunderstand one another, and asked,
"Is there not for us all the common ground of the fatherland,
of common interest and the wish that we feel to make our
people more prosperous, happier and freer?" "I do not
know what I will see there [in Hungary]," he continued,
"but this much I will say, that I know that nothing will
convince me that this readiness of the workingmen to fight

346 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

against the government and of the government to fight
against the workingmen can bring anything good to either

* side." (7)

\^ Such expressions naturally aroused the European Socialist
and Labor press, and Kautsky even devoted a special article
to Gompers in the Neue Zeit. (8) It was not necessary
in a Socialist periodical to say anything against Gompers's
preaching of the common interests of capital and labor, since
there is practically no Socialist who would not agree that such
a belief amounts to a total blindness to industrial and politi-
cal conditions. But Kautsky feared that the German work-
ingmen might give some credit to Gompers's claim that the
non-Socialist policy of the American unions was responsible
for the relatively greater prosperity of the working people
in America. "The workingmen," he explained, referring
to this country, " have not won their higher wages in the
last decade, but have inherited them from their forefathers.
They were principally a result of the presence of splendid
lands from which every man who wanted to become inde-
pendent got as much as he needed."

Then he proceeded to show by the statistics of the Depart-
ment of Labor that daily real wages, measured in terms of
what they would buy, had actually decreased for the majority
of American workingmen during the last decade. It is true,
as Mr. Gompers replied, that the hours have become some-
what less, and that therefore the amount of real wages re-
ceived per hour of work has slightly increased, though there
are few working people who will count themselves very for-
tunate in a decrease of hours if it .is paid for even in a part
by 'a decrease of the real wages received at the end of the
day. And even if we compare the early nineties with the
last years of the recent decade, we find that the slight increase
in the purchasing power of the total wages received (i.e. real
wages) amounted at the most to no more than two or three
per cent in these fifteen years. In a word, the disproportion
between the prosperity of the wage earning and capitalist
classes has in the past two decades become much greater
than ever before.

The basis of the Socialist economic criticism of existing
society — and one that appeals to the majority of the world's
labor unionists also — is that while the proportion of the
population that consists of wage earners is everywhere
increasing, the share of the national income that goes to

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 347

wages is everywhere growing less. There is no more striking,
easily demonstrable, or generally admitted fact in modern
life. The whole purpose of Socialism — in so far as it can
be expressed in terms of income, is to reverse this tendency
and to keep it reversed until private capital is reduced to
impotence, as far as the control of industry is concerned.

Contrast with the position of Gompers and Mitchell the
chief official of the German unions, Karl Legien, a relatively
conservative representative of Continental unionism.

"The unions," he says, "are based on the conviction that there
is an unbridgeable gulf between capital and labor. This does not
mean that the capitalists and laborers may not, as men, find points of
contact ; it means only that the accumulation of capital, resting as
it does on keeping from the laborer a part of the products of his
labor, forces a propertyless proletariat to sell its labor at any price
it can get. Between those who wish to maintain these conditions
and the propertyless laborers there is a wall which can be done away
with only by the abolition of wage labor. Here the views prevail-
ing in the unions are at one with those of the Social Democratic
Party."

"The unions are chiefly occupied in the effort to use their power
to shape the labor contract in their favor, and do not consider it as
their task to propagate this view, but holds the propaganda as being
the task rather of the Social Democratic Party and its organizations."

Even the struggle for higher wages and shorter hours
carried on by the unions, Legien says, is fought in the con-
sciousness that it will make labor "more capable of the final
solution of the social problem." He reminds us that the
overwhelming majority of .the German unionists are Social-
ists, and says that the labor conflict itself must have led to
this result, though he does not want the unions to support the
party as unions. In other countries of the Continent, union-
ists go even farther. In Austria, Belgium, and elsewhere
the two organizations act as a single body, and in France,
not satisfied with working for Socialism as members of the
party, unionists also make it a declared end of their unions,
independently of all political action, and shape their every-
day policies accordingly.

It is only when we come to Great Britain that we find the
unions in a conciliatory relation with employers such as has
hitherto prevailed in the United States. The relation
between the unions and capitalistic "State Socialists" of
Great Britain has been friendly. As I have already noted,

348 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the enthusiasm of the British unions for the social reforms of
the Liberal Party and government has hitherto been so great
that they consented that the increase of the taxation needed
to pay for these reforms should fall on their shoulders, while
the wealthy classes made the world ring with epithets of
"revolution" because a burden of almost exactly the same
weight was placed on them to pay for the Dreadnoughts they
demanded, and because land was nationally taxed for the
first tune. Mr. Churchill himself conceded that his social
reform budget "draws nearly as much from the taxation of
tobacco and spirits, which are the luxuries of the working
classes, who pay their share with silence and dignity, as it
does from those wealthy classes upon whose behalf such
heart-rending outcry is made." (9)

Perhaps the fact that the labor unions of Great Britain
up to 1910 spent less than a tenth part of their income on
strikes was a still stronger ground for Mr. Churchill's admira-
tion, since he had to deal with the strikers as President of the
Board of Trade. While the national income of the country
has been increasing enormously in the past two decades,
and the higher or taxed incomes have more than doubled
(which is a rate of increase far greater than the rise in prices),
the income even of unionized workers has not kept up with
this rise. In a word, the propertied classes are getting a
larger and larger share of the national income (see Mr. Chur-
chill's language in preceding chapter). Now should the
unions continue in the moderation of their demands, — or
even should they obtain a 10 or 20 per cent increase (as some
have done since the railway and seamen's strike of 1911), —
the propertied classes would still have been getting a larger and
larger share of the national income. From 1890 to 1899
prices in England are estimated to have fallen 5 per cent,
while wages of organized workingmen rose 2 per cent; from
1900 to 1908 prices rose 6 per cent, while these wages fell
1 per cent. A 7 per cent improvement in the first decade
was followed by a 7 per cent retrogression in the second —
among organized workers. (10) There is then no probability
that the British unions will check the constant decrease in the
share of the total wealth of the country that goes to the wage
earner, until they have completed the reversal of older policies
now in progress. That this may soon occur is indicated by
the great strikes of 1911 (which I shall consider in the next
chapter).

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 349

The American unions also are beginning to take a more
radical and Socialistic attitude. At its Convention at
Columbus, Ohio (January, 1911), the United Mine Workers,
after prolonged discussion, passed by a large majority an
amendment to their constitution, forbidding their officers
from acting as members of the Civic Federation. This reso-
lution was confessedly aimed at Mr. John Mitchell, as Vice
President of the Civic Federation, and resulted in his resigna-
tion from that body. It marks a crisis in the American
Labor movement. The Miners' Union had already indorsed
Socialism, its Vice President is a party Socialist, and its
present as well as its former President vote the Socialist
ticket. Having forced the Federation of Labor to admit
the revolutionary Western Federation of Miners into the
Federation of Labor Congresses, the element opposed to
Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell's conservative tactics has,
for the first time, become formidable, embracing one third
of the delegates, and is likely to bring about great changes
within a few years, both as to the Federation's political
and as to its labor-union policy.

This action of the Miners was followed a few months later
by the election to office of several of Mr. Gompers's Socialist
opponents in his own union (the Cigarmakers). Then
another of Mr. Gompers's most valued lieutenants (after Mr.
Mitchell), Mr. James O'Connell, for many years President
of the very important Machinists' Union, was defeated by a
Socialist, Mr. W. H. Johnston, — after a very lively contest
in which Socialism and the Civic Federation, and their
contrasting the labor policies, played a leading part. The
old conservative trade unionism is not only going, but it is
going so fast that one or two more years like the last would
overwhelm it in the national convention of the Federation of
Labor and revolutionize the policy of the whole movement.

The change in the political attitude of the American unions
has been equally rapid. Until a few years ago the majority
of them were opposed to cooperation with any political
party. Then they decided almost unanimously to act
nationally, and for the time being with the Democrats, and
this decision still holds. More recently several local labor
parties have been formed, and the Socialist Party has occa-
sionally been supported. The only question that interests
us, however, is the purpose behind these changing political
tactics.

350 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

It is natural that unionists on entering into the Socialist
Party should seek to control it. Socialists make no objection
at this point. The only question relates to their purpose in
seeking control. A prominent Socialist miner, John Walker,
has frankly advocated a Labor Party of the British type,
while others wish to turn the Socialist Party into that sort
of an organization; while the Secretary of the Oklahoma
Federation of Labor, on joining the Party said: "Let us
get into the Socialist Party — on the inside — and help run
it as we think it should be run," and then gave an idea of how
he proposed to run it by accusing the Party of containing
too many people "who are Socialists before anything else."
This is a common feeling among new labor-union recruits in
the Party. It is difficult to see the difference between those
who share Walker's view and want to carry out the present
non-Socialist political program of the unions through a non-
Socialist Labor Party and those who, like this other union
official, expect to use the Socialist Party for the same purpose.
Let us notice the similarity of certain arguments used in
favor of each method.

"The Socialist Party," says the organ of the Garment Workers'
Union, "does not command the confidence of American labor to
the extent of becoming a national power in pur day and generation,
and it is, therefore, necessary that the working class should turn its
attention to the formation of a party that will be productive of
practical results in sweeping away the legislative and the legal
obstacles that now stand in the way of our rights and progress." (11)

"Much is being written and said nowadays as to the danger of
Socialism and in favor of trades unionism," writes the Mine Workers'
Journal, "To us the condemnation of the Socialists, coming as it does
from the capitalistic press, is a reminder that of the two evils to
their selfish class interest, they prefer the least. ... It is useless to
attempt to divide trades unionism from Socialism. It cannot be
done. They have all learned that their interests are common ; they
know that labor divided will continue to suffer, and will hang to-
gether before they will allow capital to hang them separately.

"Indeed, looking at trades unionism in all its phases and from
every angle, we fail to see why Socialism and it should be separated.
The man or men in the movement to-day who are not more or less
Socialistic in their belief are few and far between and do not know
what the principles of unionism are, or what it stands for. We are
all more or less Socialistic in our belief." (12)

A perusal of the labor papers in general shows that while
a number agree with the Garment Workers a still larger

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 351

number share the opinion of the Mine Workers' Journal. Yet
what is the essential difference ?

The Garment Workers' organ claims that the European
Socialists and trade unionists support one another's candi-
dates and unite their power without the Socialists demand-
ing the indorsement of their program, and argues for that
policy in this country. This statement is not accurate.
Only in England, where there has hitherto been no independ-
ent Socialist action of any consequence, has there been any
such compromise. On the Continent of Europe the Socialists
usually agree to leave the unions perfect freedom in their
business, and not to interfere in the slightest with their
action on the economic field, but there is no important instance
in recent years where they have compromised with them at
the ballot box. And this error is shared by the Mine Workers'
Journal, which, as I have just shown, is friendly rather than
hostile to Socialism. In another editorial in this organ we
find it said that "whenever Socialism in America adopts the
methods of the British, and other European toilers and pulls
in harness with trade unionism, it is bound to make headway
faster than at present, because there is scarcely a man in
the labor movement that is not more or less of a Socialist." (12)
Here again the British (Labor Party) and the Continental
(Socialist) methods are confused. It is true that the Social-
ist parties and the labor unionists everywhere act together.
But there are two fundamental differences between the situa-
tion in Great Britain and that on the Continent. A large
part of the unions on the Continent are extremely radical
if not revolutionary in their labor-union tactics, and secondly,
the overwhelming majority of their members are Socialists
in politics. Surely there could be no greater contrast than
that between the swallowing up of the budding Socialist
movement by non-Socialist labor unions in Great Britain
and the support of the Socialist Party by the revolutionary
unionist on the Continent.

In America only a minority of the unions are definitely
and clearly Socialist. The local federations of the unions in
many of our leading cities have declared for the Party.
Among the national organizations, however, only the West-
ern Federation of Miners, the Brewers, the Hat and Cap
Makers, the Bakers, and a few others, numbering together
no more than a quarter of a million members, have definitely
indorsed Socialism. The Coal Miners, numbering nearly

352 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

300,000, have indorsed collective ownership of industry,
but without saying anything about the Socialist Party.
Besides these, the Socialist Party, of course, has numerous
individual adherents in every union. On the whole the
Socialists are very much outnumbered in the unions, and as
long as this condition remains, the majority of Socialists do
not desire anything approaching fusion between the two
movements.

Half a century ago, it is true, Marx himself favored the
Socialists entering into a labor union party in England. He
assumed that English unions would soon go into politics,
whereas they took half a century to do it ; he assumed, also,
that when they entered politics they would be more or less
militant and independent, and he never imagined that during
fifteen years of "independent action" they would oppose
revolutionary and militant ideas more than ever, and would
even go so far in support of the Liberal Party as almost to
bring about a split within their own anti-revolutionary ranks.
Certainly Marx expected that they would accept his leading
principles, whereas only the smallest minority of the present
Labor Party has done so, while the majority has not yet
consented to make Socialism an element of the Party's
constitution, confining themselves to a broad general declara-
tion in favor of "State Socialism" — and even this not to
be binding on its members.

Marx's standard for a workingmen's party was Socialism
and nothing less than Socialism. In his famous letter on the
Gotha program addressed in 1875 to Bebel, Liebknecht, and
others, at the time of the formation of the Socialist Party
and perhaps the greatest practical crisis in Marx's lifetime,
he said, it will be recalled, that "every step of real movement
is more important than a dozen programs," but he was even
then against any sacrifice of essential principle. He saw
that the workingmen themselves might be satisfied by "the
mere fact of the union" of his followers with those of LaSalle,
but he said that it was an error to believe that this moment-
ous result could not be bought too dearly, and if any prin-
ciple was to be sacrificed, he preferred, instead of fusion, "a
simple agreement against the common enemy."

While Socialist workingmen, then, are inclined to attach
more importance to the Socialist Party than to conservative
unionism, they expect the new aggressive, democratic, and
revolutionary unionism to do even more for Socialism, at

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS 353

least in the expected crisis of the future, than the Party itself.
The tendency of the unions towards politics is merely an
automatic result of the tendency of governments and capital-
ists towards a certain form of collectivism. Far more sig-
nificant is their tendency towards Socialism whether through
politics or through the strike, the boycott, and other means.

Trade unionism, transferred to the field of politics, is not
Socialism. The struggles against employers for more wages,
less hours, and better conditions has no necessary relation
to the struggle against capitalism for the control of industry
and government. The former struggle may evolve into the
latter, and usually does so, but long periods may also inter-
vene when it takes no step in that direction. Moreover,
a trade union party of the British type, whether it takes
the name Socialist or not, if it acts as rival to a genuine
Socialist Party, checks the latter's growth.

When revolutionary labor organizations composed largely
of genuine Socialists enter into politics, the situation is com-
pletely reversed — even when such organizations take the
step primarily for the sake of their unions rather than to aid
the Socialist Party. This situation I shall consider in the
following chapter.

2A

CHAPTER V

SYNDICALISM; SOCIALISM THROUGH DIRECT
ACTION OF LABOR UNIONS

IN America, France, Italy, and England, as well as in
Germany (in a modified form) a new and more radical labor-
union policy has been rapidly gaining the upper hand. This
new movement — in its purely economic, as well as its political,
bearings — is of far greater moment to Socialists than the
political tendencies of those unions that continue to follow
the old tactics in their direct relations with employers.

In America and in England, unfortunately, the name given
to this new movement, "industrial unionism," is somewhat
ambiguous. A more correct term would be "labor" union-
ism as distinct from "trade" unionism, or "class unionism"
against "sectional unionism." By "industrial unionism"
the promoters of the new movement means that all the em-
ployees of a given industry are to be solidly bound together
in a single union instead of being divided into many sepa-
rate organizations as so often happens to-day, and so as to
act as a unit against the employer, as, for example, the steel
workers, machinists, longshoremen, structural iron workers,
etc., are all to be united against the Steel Trust. The
essential idea is not any particular form of united action,
but united action. Certainly the united action of all the
trades at work under a single employer or employers' asso-
ciation is of the first importance, but it is equally important
that "industrial" unions so composed should aid one another,
that the united railway organizations, for example, should
be ready to strike with seamen, dockers, etc., as was done in
the recent British strike. An interview with Mr. Vernon
Hartshorn, who recently headed the poll in the election for
the executive committee of the important South Wales
Mining Federation, indicates the tendency in Great Britain
at the present moment — when both coal and railway strikes
are threatened on a national scale — not merely towards
industrial unionism, but towards the far more important

354

SYNDICALISM 355

union of industrial unions, which is really the underlying
idea in the minds of most, though not all, of the propagandists
of "industrial unionism."

"I think it a very silly business," exclaimed Mr. Hartshorn em-
phatically, "for the workers in different industries to be proceeding
with national movements independently of each other. A short time
ago we had a national stoppage on the railways ; that, as a matter
of course, rendered the miners idle. Before that we had something
in the nature of a national stoppage in the case of the seamen's
dispute ; that, also, in many districts paralysed the mining industry
and rendered idle the workmen. Now it appears likely that the
miners will be taking part in a national stoppage which, hi turn,
will render the railway men and seamen idle.

"The idea is gradually dawning upon all sections of organized
labor that the right thing to do would be for these three unions,
through their executives, to establish a working alliance by means
of which united action should be taken to secure reforms which
would result in the raising of the standard of living of the whole of
the workmen employed in these undertakings. Of course the griev-
ances in different trades differ considerably in points of detail, but
they all have a common basis in that they relate to wages and con-
ditions of work. If the three organizations could be got to act
together with a view of establishing a guaranteed minimum wage for
all workmen employed, then not all the forces of the Crown, nor all
the powers of government, could prevent them from emancipating
themselves from their present deplorable position." (1)

It is equally necessary for the unions in order to obtain
maximum results that a special relation should be established
between the members of such trades as are to be found hi
more than one industry. Teamsters, stationary engineers,
machinists, and blacksmiths, for example, whether employed
by mines, railways, or otherwise, can aid one another hi
obvious ways — as by securing positions for blacklisted men
and preventing non-unionists from obtaining employment -
by means of a special "trade" organization or federation that
cuts across the various "industrial" unions or federations.
All this, indeed, is provided for in the plans of the "industrial
unionists," in the idea of gradually reorganizing the present
loose Federation of Labor into "a union of unions," or, as
they express it, "One Big Union." This last term also is
not very fortunate, for it is by no means proposed to form
one absolutely centralized organization, like the former
Knights of Labor, but to preserve a considerable measure

356 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of autonomy for the constituent industrial unions. Neither
does the new unionism require, as some of its exponents
allege, the abolition of the older trade unions, either local or
national, but only that all unions shall be democratically
organized and open to unskilled labor, and that the general
organization, of which they are all a part, shall be the first
consideration, and the local groupings whether by trade or
industry only secondary.

The principle of the new union policy is exactly the same
translated into terms of economic action, as the principle
of revolutionary Socialism as conceived by Marx, and hitherto
applied by Socialists chiefly on the political field. In the
Communist Manifesto Marx says that the chief thing that
distinguishes the Socialists from the other working-class
parties is that the former " always and everywhere represent
the interests of the movement as a whole." So while the
older unions represented the economic struggle of certain
more or less extensive parts of the working class, the industrial
unionists aim at a unionism that represents the whole of
the working class, and, since the ranks of labor are always
open, all non-capitalist humanity. A closely organized
federation of all the unions will rely very strongly upon
numbers and embrace a large proportion of unskilled workers.
It will, therefore, be forced to fight the cause of the common
man. But this can only be done by fighting against every
form of oppression and privilege — all of which bear on the
men at the bottom.

The industrial policy idea has received its most remarkable
indorsement in the great British railway strike of 1911.
Before showing what lay behind this epoch-making move-
ment, let me refer to the great change in the British Union
world that preceded it.

In 1910 there occurred an unprecedented series of strikes
in the four larges industries of the country, the railroads, ship-
building, cotton, and coal-mining — all within a few months
of one another, and all against the advice of the officials of the
unions. The full and exact significance of this movement was
seen when the hitherto conservative Trade Union Congress,
after a very vigorous debate, decided, on the motion of Ben
Tillett, to take a referendum of the unions on the question of
the "practicability of a confederation of all trades" and on the
"possibility of terminating all trade agreements on a given date
after each year."

SYNDICALISM 357

In the same year a great agitation began, led by the most
prominent advocate of industrial unionism in Great Britain,
the Socialist, Tom Mann, who with John Burns had been one
of the organizers of the great dockers' strike in 1886, and who
had returned, in 1910, from many years of successful agitation
in Australia to preach the new unionism in his home country.
That this agitation was one of the causes of the great seamen's,
dockers', and railway strikes that followed is indicated by
the fact that Mr. Mann was at once given the chief position
in this movement.

His first principle is that the unions should include all
the workers, in their respective industries : —

"Skilled workers, in many instances doing but little work, re-
ceive from two to seven or eight pounds a week, whilst the laborer,
having the same responsibilities as regards family and citizenship,
is compelled to accept one third of it or less.

" This must not be. We must not preach social equality and
utterly fail to practice it; and for those receiving the higher pay to
try and satisfy the demands of the lower-paid man for better con-
ditions by telling him it will be put right under Socialism, is on a par
with the parson pretending to assuage the sufferings of the poverty-
stricken by saying, ' It will be better in the next world.' It must
be put right in this world, and we must see to it now."

Unions composed exclusively of skilled workers, as many
of the present ones, operate against the interests of the less
skilled — often without actually intending to do so. Mr.
Mitchell, for instance, concedes that the trade unions bring
about "the elimination of men who are below a certain fixed
standard of efficiency." This argument will appeal strongly
to employers and believers in the survival of the fittest doc-
trine. But it will scarcely appeal to the numerous unskilled
workers eliminated, or the still more numerous workers whose
employment is thus lessened at every slack season. Mr.
Edmond Kelly shows how the principle acts— "Where
there is a minimum wage of $4 a day the workman can no
longer choose to do only $3 worth of work and be paid accord-
ingly, but he must earn $4 or else cease from work, at least
in that particular trade, locality, or establishment." (2)
The result is that the highest skilled workmen obtain steady
employment through the union, while the less skilled are
penalized by underemployment. The unions have equalized
daily wages, but the employer has replied by making employ-

358 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ment and therefore annual wages all the more unequal, and
many of the workers may have lost more than they gained.
Whereas if each man could secure an equal share of work,
he might be paid according to his efficiency and yet be far
better off than now. But the only way to secure an equal
amount of work for all is through a union where all have an
equal voice and where the union is strong enough to have a
say as to who is to be employed.

It is this tendency either automatically or intentionally
actually to injure unskilled labor, that has led men like Mann
and Debs and Haywood to their severe criticism of the present
policies of the unions, and even affords some ground for
Tolstoi's classification of well-paid artisans, electricians,
and mechanics among the exploiters of unskilled labor. In
the days of serfdom, the great writer said, "Only one class
were slave owners ; all classes, except the most numerous
one — consisting of peasants who have too little land, la-
borers, and workingmen — are slave-owners now." The
master class, Tolstoi says, to-day includes, not only "nobles,
merchants, officials, manufacturers, professors, teachers,
authors, musicians, painters, rich peasants, and the rich men's
servants," but also "well-paid artisans, electricians, mechan-
ics," etc.

Mr. Mann thus defines the attitude of this new unionism
to the old : —

"It is well known that in Britain, as elsewhere, there is only a
minority of the workers organized; of the ten millions of men
eligible for industrial organization only one fourth are members of
trade unions ; naturally these are, in the main, the skilled workers,
who have associated together with a view to maintaining for them-
selves the advantage accruing to skilled workers, when definite
restrictions are placed upon the numbers able to enter and remain
in the trades.

"We have had experience enough to know that the difficulties
of maintaining a ring fence around an occupation, which secures to
those inside the fence special advantages, are rapidly increasing,
and in a growing number of instances, the fence has been entirely
broken down by changes in the methods of production. We know,
further, that . . . the majority of trade unionists still remain section-
ally isolated, powerless to act except in single sectional bodies, and
incapable of approaching each other and merging and amalgamating
forces for common action. This it is that is responsible for the
modern practice of entering into lengthy agreements between employers
and workers. Sectional trade unions being incapable of offensive

SYNDICALISM 359

action, and gradually giving way before the persistent power of the
better organized capitalist class, they fall back upon agreements for
periods of from two to five years, during which time they undertake
that no demands shall be made." (My italics.)

The industrialists, therefore, advocate the termination of
all wage agreements simultaneously and at short intervals
or even at will (like tenancies at will, or call loans). They
claim that employers are practically free to terminate exist-
ing agreements whenever they please, as they can always find
grounds for dismissing individuals or for temporarily shutting
down their works or for otherwise discriminating against
active unionists or varying the terms of a contract before its
expiration. But it is in America that the policy of no agree-
ments, or agreements at will is most advanced. In Great
Britain it is thought that agreements for one year and all
ending on the same day may lead to the same results. If
there is a central organization with power to call strikes on
the part of any combination of unions, and the large majority
of the workers are organized, it is held that the new union-
ism will soon prove irresistible, even if agreements in this
form are retained.

The recent strikes have not only been stimulated by this
gospel and led by its chief representatives, Tom Mann,
Ben Tillett, and others, but from the very first they have been
an actual application of the new idea and have marked a long
step towards the complete reorganization of the British
unions. They were started with the seamen's strike hi June,
when the dockers in many places struck in sympathy, at the
same time adding demands of their own. When the seamen
won their strike, they refused to go back to work at several
points, against the advice of their conservative officials,
until the dockers received what they were striking for. With
the dockers were involved teamsters, and these from the
first had agreed to support one another, for they were both
connected with Mr. Mann's "National Transport Workers'
Federation." And the railway strike was largely due to the
fact that the railway unions decided at least to cooperate with
this federation. The dockers had remained on strike at
Liverpool in sympathy with the railway porters who had
struck in the first instance to aid the dockers, and at the
first strike conference of the railway union officials, forty-one
being present, it was voted unanimously "that the union was

360 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

determined not to settle the dispute with the companies
unless the lockout imposed upon their co-workers because of
their support of the railroad men at Liverpool and elsewhere
is removed and all the men reinstated."

There can be little doubt that the railway strike would
neither have taken place at the critical time it did, nor have
gone as far as it went, except for this new and concerted action
which embraced even the least skilled and least organized
classes of labor.

Accompanying this movement toward common action,
"solidarity" of labor, and more and more general strikes,
was the closely related reaction against existing agreements —
on the ground that they cripple the unions' power of effective
industrial warfare. For several years there had been a simul-
taneous movement on the part of the "State Socialist"
government towards compulsory arbitration, and among the
unions against any interference on the part of a government
over which they have little or no control — the railway strike
being directed, according to the unionists, as much against
the government as against the railways. For many years the
government, represented by Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Winston
Churchill, had acted as arbitrator in every great industrial
conflict, and had secured many minor concessions for the
unions. As long as no critical conflict occurred that might
materially weaken either the government or the capitalist
or employing classes as a whole, this policy worked well.
It was only by a railway strike, or perhaps by a seamen's
or miners' strike that it could be put to a real test. By the
settlement of the threatened railway strike of 1907 the
employees had gained very little, and had voluntarily left
the final power to decide disputes in the hands of govern-
ment arbitrators. A conservative Labourite, Mr. J. R. Mac-
Donald, writing late in 1910, said : —

"We held at the time that the agreement which Mr. Bell accepted
on behalf of the Railway Servants would not work. It was a sur-
render. The railway directors were consulted for days ; they were
allowed to alter the terms of agreement at their own sweet will, and
when they agreed, the men's representatives were asked to go to the
Board of Trade and were told that they could not alter a comma,
could not sleep over the proposal, could not confer with any one
about it, had to accept it there and then. In a moment of weakness
they accepted. An agreement come to in such a way was not likely
to be of any use to the men." (3)

SYNDICALISM 361

Nevertheless, this extremely important settlement was
accepted by the union. Mr. Churchill did not know how
to restrain his enthusiasm for unions that were so good as to
fall in so obediently with his political plans. "They are
not mere visionaries or dreamers," says Churchill, "weaving
airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke. They are not political
adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule of
thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities
of scientific civilization and the multitudinous phenomena of
great cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any
moderately intelligent parrot could repeat in a fortnight.
The fortunes of trade unions are interwoven with the indus-
tries they serve. The more highly organized trade unions
are, the more clearly they recognize their responsibilities." (4)

By 1911 the whole situation was completely reversed.
Over less important bodies of capitalists and employers than
the railways, the government had power and a will to exercise
its power. The railways, however, are practically a function
of government — absolutely indispensable if it is to retain
its other powers undiminished. It was for this reason that
little if any governmental force was used against them, and
the agreement of 1907 came to be of even less value to the
men than agreements made in other industries. When the
chorus of union complaints continued to swell, and the men
asked the government to bring pressure on the railways, at
least to meet their committee, it acknowledged itself either
unable or unwilling to take any effective action unless to
renew the offer to appoint another royal commission, essen-
tially of the same character as that of 1907 except that
it should be smaller and should act more speedily. This still
meant that the third member of the board was to be appointed
by a government, in which experience had taught the workers
they could have no confidence — at least in its dealings with
the powerful railways.,

In view of this inherent weakness of the government, or
its hostility to the new and aggressive unionism, or perhaps a
combination of both, the unions had no recourse other than
a direct agreement or a strike. But the refusal of the rail-
ways to meet the men left no alternative other than the strike,
and at the same time showed that they did not much fear
that the unions could strike with success. It was no longer
a question of the justice or injustice, truth or untruth, of
the unions' claims. The railways, in a perfectly practical

362 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and businesslike spirit, questioned the power of the unions,
by means of a strike, to cause them sufficient damage to make
it profitable even to meet their representatives — without
the presence of a government representative, who, they had
learned by experience, would in all probability take a position
with which they would be satisfied. Mr. Asquith's offer, then,
to submit the "correctness" of the unions' statements and
the "soundness" of their contentions to a tribunal, was en-
tirely beside the point. The representatives of the railways
were sure to give such a tribunal to understand, however dip-
lomatically and insidiously, that the unions were without
that power, which alone, in the minds of "practical" men,
can justify any considerable demand, such as the settlement
of all questions through the representatives of the men (the
recognition of the union).

Doubtless the railways had refused to meet the union rep-
resentatives until they felt assured that the government's
position would on the whole be satisfactory to them. The
government's real attitude was made plain when, after the
refusal of the unions practically to leave their whole liveli-
hood and future in its hands, as in 1907, it used this as a
pretext for taking sides against them — not by prohibiting
the strike, but by limiting more and more narrowly the scope
it was to be allowed to take.

The government loudly protested its impartiality, and
gave very powerful and plausible arguments for interference.
But the laborers feel that the right not to work is as essential
as life itself, and all that distinguishes them essentially from
slaves, and that no argument whatever is valid against it.
Let us look at a few of the government statements : —

The government, said the Premier, was perfectly impartial
in regard to the merits of the various points of dispute. The
government had regard exclusively for the interests oj the
public, and having regard for those interests they could not
allow the paralysis of the railway systems throughout the
country, and would have to take the necessary steps to pre-
vent such paralysis.

The representatives of the unions replied by a public state-
ment, in which they declared that this was an "unwarrantable
threat" and an attempt to put the responsibility for the
suspension of work on the unions : —

"We consider the statement made in behalf of his Majesty's
government, an unwarrantable threat uttered against the railroad

SYNDICALISM 363

workers who for years have made repeated applications to the
Board of Trade and also to Parliament to consider the advisability
of amending the conciliation board scheme of 1907. . . . And
further it shows a failure of the Board of Trade to amend its own
scheme, and also of the railroad companies to give an impartial and
fair interpretation of such schemes. . . . And inasmuch as this
joint meeting has already urged the employers to meet us with a
view to discussing the whole position and which, if agreed to by
them, would in our opinion have settled the matter, we therefore
refuse to accept the responsibility the government has attempted to
throw upon us, and further respectfully but firmly ask his Majesty's
government whether the responsibility of the railroad companies
is in any degree less than that of other employers of labor."

In other words, there is and can be no law compelling men
to labor, and no matter what the consequences of their refusal
to work, it is a matter that concerns the workers themselves
more than all other persons.

Mr. Winston Churchill made a more detailed statement.
He said that "the government was taking all necessary
steps to make sure that the food supply as well as fuel and
other essentials should not be interrupted on the railways or
at the ports."

"All services vital to the community should be maintained, and
the government would see to that, not because they were on the side
either of the employers or the workmen, but because they were
bound to protect the public from the danger that a general arrest of
industry would entail. " He continued : —

"The means whereby the people of this land live are highly
artificial, and a serious breakdown would lead to starvation among
a great number of poorer people. Not the well-to-do would suffer,
but the poor of the great cities and those dependent upon them,
who would be quite helpless if the machinery by which they are fed
— on which they are dependent for wages — was thrown out of gear.

"The government believes that the arrangements made for
working the lines of communication, and for the maintenance of
order, will prove effective ; but, if not, other measures of even larger
scope will be taken promptly. It must be clearly understood that
there is no escape from these facts, and, as they affect the supply
of food for the people, and the safety of the country, they are far more
important than anything else."

To this the railway workers answered that it is to protect
their own food that they strike, and that food is as important
to them as to others, that practically all those who are depend-
ent on wages are willing to undergo the last degree of suffer-

364 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ing to preserve the right to strike, that the means of liveli-
hood of this majority are no whit less important than the
"safety" of the rest of the country. Moreover, if the gov-
ernment is allowed to use military or other means to aid the
railways to transport food, fuel, and other things, more or less
essential, it prevents that very "paralysis" which is the nec-
essary object of every strike. Industrial warfare of this
critical kind must indeed be costly to the whole community,
often endangering health and even life itself, but the workers
are almost unanimous in believing that a few days or weeks
of this, repeated only after years of interval, costs far less
in life and health than the low wages paid to labor year after
year and generation after generation. They demand the
right to strike unhampered by any government in which capital-
istic or other than wage-earning classes predominate. Only
when the government falls into the hands of a group of wholly
non-capitalist classes — of which wage earners form the major-
ity — will they expect it to grant such rights and conditions
as are sufficient to compensate them for parting with any
element of the right to strike.

The great British strike, then, had a double significance.
It showed the tremendously increased strength of labor
when every class of workers is organized and all are united
together, and it showed an increasing unwillingness to allow
separate agreements to stand in the way of general strikes.

The strength of the strikers in the British upheaval of 1911, how-
ever, has been grossly exaggerated on both sides. There is no doubt
that the aggressive action came from the masses of the workers, as
their leaders held them back in nearly every instance. There is no
question that the various unions cooperated more than usual, that
vast masses of the unskilled were for the first time organized, and
that these features won the strikes. The advance was remarkable
— but we can only measure the level reached if we realize the point
from which the start was made. As a matter of fact, the unskilled
labor of Great Britain until 1911 was probably worse paid and less
organized than that of any great manufacturing country — and the
advance made by no means brings it to the level of the United States.

Since the great dock strike of 1886, led by John Burns and Tom
Mann, unskilled labor has tried in vain to organize effectively unions
like those of the seamen and railway servants, the majority of whose
members were neither of the least skilled nor of the most skilled
classes, had an uphill fight, and were only able to organize a part of
the workers. Five dollars a week was considered such a high and
satisfactory wage by the wholly unskilled (dockers, etc.) that it was

SYNDICALISM 365

often made the basis of their demands. The Board of Trade Report
shows that 400,000 railwaymen, including the most skilled, had from
1899 to 1909 an average weekly wage varying from $6.35 to $6.60
per week. The railway union found that of a quarter of a million
men 39 per cent got less than $5 a week, and 89 per cent less than
$7.50. Seamen at Liverpool received from $20 to $32.50 a month.

If then the Liverpool sailors received an increase of $2.50 a month,
while the wages of other strikers were raised on the average about
20 per cent, what must we conclude ? Undoubtedly the gain was
worth all the labor and sacrifice it cost. But it must be remembered,
first, that these wages are still markedly inferior to those of this
country in spite of its hordes of foreign labor ; and second, that the
increase is little if any above the rise in the cost of living in recent
years, and will undoubtedly soon be overtaken by a further rise.
The great steamship lines increased their rates on account of the
strike almost the same week that it was concluded, and the railway
companies gave in only when the government consented that they
should raise their rates. But the larger part of the consumers are
workingmen, and their cost of living is thus rising more rapidly than
ever on account of the strikes. Finally, the unions of the unskilled
are as a rule not yet recognized by their employers, while the railway
union is probably as completely at the mercy of the government as
ever.

In a word, the point reached is by no means very advanced ; on the
other hand, the material gain made in view of the former backwardness
of the railwaymen, seamen, and dockers is highly important for
England, while the methods employed, the movement having
originated from below, and having been sustained against conserv-
ative leaders (only a few radicals like Tom Mannj and Ben Tillett
being trusted), is of world-wide significance. The unions as well as
their common organizations, the Trade Union Congress, the Labour
Party, and the General Federation of Trade Unions are drawing
closer together, while the Socialists and revolutionary unionists are
everywhere taking the lead — as evidenced, for example, by the
election of the most radical Socialist member of Parliament, Mr.
Will Thorne, to be President of the 1912 Trade Union Congress.

The success of the new movement as against the older Labour
Party and trade union tactics may also be seen from the disturbed
state of mind of the older leaders. Take, for example, the attack
of the Chairman of the Labour Party, Mr. J. R. MacDonald : —

"The new revolution which Syndicalism and its advocates of the
Industrial Workers of the World contemplate has avoided none of
the errors or the pitfalls of the old, but it has added to them a whole
series of its own. It has never considered the problems which it has
to meet. It is, as expressed in the Outlook of this month, a mere
escapade of the nursery mind. It is the product of the creative
intelligence of the man who is impatient because it takes the earth
twenty-four hours to wheel around the sun (sic). . . . The hospi-

366 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

tality which the Socialist movement has offered so generously to all
kinds of cranks and scoundrels because they professed to be in revolt
against the existing order has already done our movement much
harm. Let it not add Syndicalism to the already too numerous
vipers which, in the kindness of its heart, it is warming on its hearth-
stones." (5) [See note at end of chapter.]

The new revolutionary unionism takes different forms in
Great Britain, France, and America. In France it has ex-
pressed itself through agitation for the general strike and
against the army, the only thing that a general strike move-
ment has to fear. The agitation has completely captured
the national federation of unions, has a well-developed lit-
erature, a daily paper (La Bataille Syndicaliste — The Union
Battle, — established in 1911), and has put its principles into
effect in many ways, especially by more numerous and wide-
spread strikes and by attacks on military discipline. But
there has been no strike so nearly general as the recent
British one, and both the efforts in this direction and those
directed against the army have a future rather than a present
importance and will be considered in succeeding chapters
(Part III, Chapters VI and VII).

In America the new movement first appeared several years
ago in the very radical proposal indorsed at the time by
Debs, Haywood, and many prominent Socialists, to replace
the older unions by a new set built on entirely different prin-
ciples, including organizations of the least skilled, and the
solid union of all unions for fighting purposes. This move-
ment took concrete form in a new organization, the Industrial
Workers of the World, which was launched with some prom-
ise, but soon divided into factions and was abandoned by
Debs and others of its organizers. It has grown in strength
in some localities, having conducted the remarkable struggles
at McKees Rocks (Pa.) and Lawrence (Mass.), but is not at
present a national factor — which is in part due, perhaps, to
the fact that the older unions are tending, though gradually,
towards somewhat similar principles.

Not only is Socialism spreading rapidly in all the unions,
but along with it is spreading this new unionism. For many
years the Western Federation of Miners, famous as the
central figure in all the labor wars in the Rocky Mountain
States, was the most powerful union in this country that was
representative both of revolutionary Socialism and of revo-
lutionary unionism. But it was not a part of the American

SYNDICALISM 367

Federation of Labor. When it became closely united with
the Coal Miners, and the latter union forced its admission
into the American Federation of Labor (in 1911), it at once
began a campaign for its principles inside this organization.
It now stands for two proposals, the first of which would
solidly unite all the unions, and the second of which would
cut all bonds between labor and capital. Neither is likely
to be adopted this year, but both seem sure of a growing
popularity and will in all probability result in some radical
and effective action within a very few years.

In its Convention of July, 1911, the Western Federation
of Miners decided to demand of the Federation of Labor the
free exchange of membership cards among all its constituent
unions. Thus the unions would preserve their autonomy,
but every member would be free, when he changed his em-
ployer, to pass from one to the other without cost. The
result would be that quarrels between the unions over mem-
bers would lessen automatically, and also admission fees, dues,
and benefits would tend towards a level. Thus all the things
that keep the unions apart and prevent common action
against the employer would be gradually removed, and the
tendency of certain unions to ignore the interests of others
reduced to a minimum. The plan is practical, because it
has already been hi successful operation for many years in
France.

Another new policy — which should be regarded as a
supplementary means for bringing about the same result
-would be to so strengthen and democratize the general
Federation as to allow great power to be placed in the hands of
the executive, and at the same time subject it to the
direct control of the combined rank and file of all the
unions. If, for example, national Federation officials were
elected, instructed, and recalled by a vote of all the
unionists in the country, the latter would probably be
willing to place in the hands of such an executive power to
call out the unions in strike in such combinations as would
make the resistance of employers most difficult, and power
to control national strike funds collected from all the unions
for these contests. Unions with a specially strong strategic
situation in industry and a favored situation in the Federa-
tion are not yet ready to forego their privileges for this form
of direct democracy, but the tendency is in this direction.
(Since these lines were first written the Federation has taken

368 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

steps towards the adoption of this plan of direct election of
its officials by national referendum.)

Indeed, when the Western Miners' second proposal, the
refusal to sign agreements for any fixed period, is adopted,
this simultaneous centralization and democratization of the
Federation may proceed apace. As long as the various unions
are bound to the employers by an entirely separate and inde-
pendent agreement terminable at different dates, it is impos-
sible to arrange strikes 'in common, especially when the more
fortunate unions adopt an entirely different plan of organiza-
tion and an entirely different policy from the rest. The
Western Miners now propose that all agreements be done
away with, a practice they had followed long and success-
fully themselves — with the single tacit exception of the
employees of the Smelter Trust (Guggenheim's). This
exception they have now done away with. Their fundamen-
tal idea is that as long as the capitalist reserves his right
to close down his works whenever he believes his interests
or those of capital require it, every union should reserve its
right to stop work at any moment when the interests of
the union or of labor require it. Temporary arrangements
are entered into which are binding as to all other matters
except the cessation of work. That this cessation would not
occur in any well-organized union over trifles goes without
saying — strikes are tremendously costly to labor. The
agreement binds in a way perfectly familiar to the business
world in the call loan or the tenancy at will.

President Moyer of the Western Federation (one of those
Mr. Roosevelt called an "undesirable citizen" at the time
when he was on trial in Idaho, accused of being an accomplice
in the murder of Governor Steunenburg) explained that his
union knew that agreements might bring certain momentary
advantages which it would otherwise lose, that it had often
been in a position to win higher wages through an agreement,
and in three cases even to gain a seven-hour day. But by
such action, he declared the union would have surrendered
its freedom. It would have been tied hand and foot, whereas
now it was free to fight whenever it wanted to. If working
people want to be united and effective, he concluded, they
must have the fullest freedom of action. This would always
pay hi the end.

In view of the great advance in the organization and fight-
ing spirit of labor secured by this new kind of industrial war-

SYNDICALISM . 369

fare, some revolutionary unionists even expect it to do more
to bring about Socialism than the Socialist parties them-
selves. Indeed, a few have gone so far as to regard these
parties as almost superfluous. Many of the new revolution-
ary unionists, though Socialists by conviction, attach so little
importance ,to political action that they have formed no con-
nection with the Socialist parties, and do not propose to do
so. Others feel the necessity of some political support, and
contend that any kind of an exclusively labor union party,
even if it represents anti-revolutionary unions like most of
those of the Federation of Labor, would serve this purpose
better than the Socialist Party, which belongs less exclusively
to the unionists.

An American revolutionary unionist and Socialist, the
late Louis Duchez, like many of his school, not only placed
his faith chiefly in the unskilled workers, either excluding the
skilled manual laborers and the brain workers, or relegating
them to a secondary position, but wanted the new organiza-
tions to rely almost entirely on their economic efforts and
entirely to subordinate political action. The hours of labor
are to be reduced, child labor is to be abolished, and every-
thing is to be done that will tend to dimmish competition
between one workingman and another, he argued, with the
idea of securing early control of the labor market. Through
labor's restriction of output, production is to be cut down and
the unemployed are to be absorbed. Thus, he declared, "a
partial expropriation of capital is taking place" and "this con-
structive program is followed until the workers get all they
produce." (6)

Here is an invaluable insight into the underlying stand-
point of some of these anti-political "syndicalists," to use
a term that has come to us from France. Nothing could
possibly be more alien to the whole spirit of revolutionary
Socialism than these conclusions. The very reason for the
existence of Socialism is that Socialists believe that the unions
cannot control the labor market in present society. The
Socialists' chief hope, moreover, is that economic evolution
will make possible and almost inevitable the transformation
of a capitalist into a Socialist society; it is then to their
interest not to retard the development of industry by the
restriction of output, but to advance it. Indeed, Mr.
Duchez's philosophy is not that of Socialist labor unionism,
but of anarchist labor unionism, and there have been strong

2B

370 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

tendencies in many countries, not only in France and Italy,
but also in the United States, especially among the more
conservative unions, to be guided by such a policy. It is the
essence of Mr. Gompers's program, as I have shown, to claim
that "a partial expropriation of capital" is taking place
through the unions, and that by this means, without any
government action, and without any revolutionary general strike
the workers will gradually "get all they produce." Accord-
ing to the Socialist view, such a gradual expropriation can
only begin after a political and economic revolution, or when,
on its near approach, capitalists prefer to make vital conces-
sions rather than to engage in such a conflict.

The leading Socialist monthly in America, the International
Socialist Review, which has indorsed the new unionism, has
even found it necessary recently to remind its readers that
the Socialist Party does after all play a certain role and a
more or less important one, in the revolutionary movement.
"Representative revolutionary unionists, like Lagardelle of
France and Tom Mann of Australia," said the Review,
"point out the immense value of a political party as an
auxiliary to the unions. A revolutionary union without
the backing of a revolutionary party will be tied up by in-
junctions. Its officers will be kidnapped. Its members, if
they defy the courts, will be corralled in bull pens or mowed
down by Gatling guns.

"A revolutionary party, on the other hand, if it phis its
hopes mainly to the passing of laws, tends always to degen-
erate into a reform party. Its 'leaders' become hungry for
office and eager for votes, even if the votes must be secured
by concessions to the middle class. In the pursuit of such
votes it wastes its propaganda on immediate demands."

The Review adds, however, that a non-political menace of
revolution does ten times as much for reforms as any politi-
cal activity; which can only mean that in its estimation
revolutionary strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, etc., are
of ten times higher present value than the ballot.

Mr. Tom Mann seems also to subordinate political to labor
union action: "Experience in all countries shows most
conclusively that industrial organization, intelligently con-
ducted, is of much more moment than political action, for,
entirely irrespective as to which school of politicians is hi
power, capable and courageous industrial activity forces
from the politicians proportionate concessions. . . . Indeed,

SYNDICALISM 371

it is obvious that a growing proportion of the intelligent
pioneers of economic changes are expressing more and more
dissatisfaction with Parliament and all its works, and look
forward to the time when Parliaments, as we know them, will
be superseded by the people managing their own affairs
by means of the Initiative and the Referendum." (7) The
last sentence shows that Mr. Mann had somewhat modified
his aversion to politics, for the Initiative and Referendum is a
political and not an economic device. His objection to poli-
tics in the form of parliamentarism (that is, trusting every-
thing to elected persons, or representatives) as distinguished
from direct democracy, would probably meet the views of the
majority of Socialists everywhere (except in Great Britain).

A later declaration of Mr. Mann after his return from Aus-
tralia to England shows that he now occupies the same ground
as Debs and Haywood in America — favoring a revolutionary
party as well as revolutionary unions : —

"The present-day degradation of so large a percentage of the
workers is directly due to their economic enslavement; and it is
economic freedom that is demanded.

"Now Parliamentary action is at all times useful, in proportion
as it makes for economic emancipation of the workers. But Social-
ists and Labour men in Parliament can only do effective work there
in proportion to the intelligence and economic organization of the
rank and file. . . .

"Certainly nothing very striking in the way of constructive work
could reasonably be expected from the minorities of the Socialists
and Labour men hitherto elected. But the most moderate and
fair-minded are compelled to declare that, not in one country but
in all, a proportion of those comrades who, prior to being returned,
were unquestionably revolutionary, are no longer so after a few years
in Parliament. They are revolutionary neither in their attitude
towards existing society nor in respect of present-day institutions.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that many seem to have con-
stituted themselves apologists for existing society, showing a degree
of studied respect for bourgeois conditions, and a toleration of
bourgeois methods, that destroys the probability of their doing any
real work of a revolutionary character.

"I shall not here attempt to juggle with the quibble of 'Revolu-
tion or Evolution/ — or to meet the contention of some of those
under consideration that it is not Revolution that is wanted. 'You
cannot change the world and yet not change the world.' Revolution
is the means of, not the alternative to, Evolution. I simply state that
a working-class movement that is not revolutionary in character,
is not of the slightest use to the working class." (8)

372 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

If Mr. Mann later resigned from the British Social Demo-
cratic Party, this was in part due to the special conditions
in Great Britain, as he said at the time, and partly to his
Australian experience of the demoralizing effects of office
seeking on the Labour Party there. Mann stands with
Herve in the French Party and Debs and Haywood in the
American. The reasons given for his withdrawal from the
British Party embody the universal complaint of revolution-
ary unionists against what is everywhere a strong tendency
of Socialist parties to become demoralized like other political
organizations. Mr. Mann, in his letter of resignation,
said : —

"After the most careful reflection I am driven to the belief that
the real reason why the trade unionist movement of this country is
in such a deplorable state of inefficiency is to be found in the fictitious
importance which the workers have been encouraged to attach to
parliamentary action.

" I find nearly all the serious-minded young men in the Labour and
Socialist movement have their minds centered upon obtaining some
position in public life, such as local, municipal, or county councilor-
ship, or filling some governmental office, or aspiring to become a
member of Parliament.

"I am driven to the belief that this is entirely wrong, and that
economic liberty will never be realized by such means. So I declare
in favor of Direct Industrial Organization, not as a means but as the
means whereby the workers can ultimately overthrow the capitalist
system and become the actual controllers of their own industrial and
social destiny."

There is little disagreement among Socialists that "Direct
Industrial Organization" is likely to prove the most impor-
tant means by which "the workers can ultimately over-
throw the capitalist system." This, the "industrial union-
ism" of Debs and Haywood and Mann, is to be sharply
distinguished from French "syndicalism" which undermines
all Socialist political action and all revolutionary economic
action as well, by teaching that even to-day by direct indus-
trial organization — without a political program or political
support, and without a revolution — "a partial expropriation
of capital is taking place."

The advocates of revolutionary labor unionism in America
for the most part are not allowing the new idea to draw away
their energies from the Socialist Party; it merely serves to
emphasize their hostility to the present unaggressive policy

SYNDICALISM 373

of the Executive American Federation of Labor and some of
the unions that compose it.

Mr. Haywood (another of Mr. Roosevelt's "undesirable
citizens") urges the working class to " become so organized
on the economic field that they can take and hold the indus-
tries in which they are employed." This view might seem
to obviate the need of a political party, but Mr. Haywood
does not regard it in that light. He says : —

"There is justification for political action, and that is, to control
the forces of the capitalists that they use against us ; to be in a posi-
tion to control the power of government so as to make the work of
the army ineffective. . . . That is the reason that you want the
power of government. That is the reason that you should fully
understand the power of the ballot.

"Now, there isn't any one, Socialist, S.L.P., Industrial Worker,
or any other working man or woman, no matter what society you
belong to, but what believes in the ballot. There are those — and
I am one of them — who refuse to have the ballot interpreted for
them. I know or think I know the power of it, and I know that the
industrial organization, as I have stated in the beginning, is its
broadest interpretation. I know, too, that when the workers are
brought together in a great organization they are not going to cease
to vote. That is when the workers will begin to vote, to vote for
directors to operate the industries in which they are all employed."

In the recent pamphlet, "Industrial Socialism," Mr. Hay-
wood and Mr. Frank Bohn develop the new unionism at
greater length. Their conclusions as to politics are directed,
not against the Socialist Party, but against its non-revolu-
tionary elements : —

"The Socialist Party stands not merely for the POLITICAL
supremacy of labor. It stands for the INDUSTRIAL supremacy
of labor. Its purpose is not to secure old age pensions and free meals
for school children. Its mission is to help overthrow capitalism
and establish Socialism.

"The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to seize the powers
of government and thus prevent them from being used by the capital-
ists against the workers. With Socialists in political offices the
workers can strike and not be shot. They can picket shops and not
be arrested and imprisoned. ... To win the demands made on the
industrial field it is absolutely necessary to control the government,
as experience shows strikes to have been lost through the inter-
ference of courts and militia. The same functions of government,
controlled by a class conscious working class, will be used to inspire

374 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

confidence and compel the wheels of industry to move in spite of the
devices and stumblingblocks of the capitalists. . . .

"Socialist government will concern itself entirely with the shop.
Socialism can demand nothing of the individual outside the shop.
... It has no concern with the numberless social reforms which
the capitalists are now preaching in order to save their miserable
profit system.

"Old age pensions are not Socialism. The workers had much
better fight for higher wages and shorter hours. Old age pensions
under the present government are either charity doled out to paupers,
or bribes given to voters by politicians. Self-respecting workers
despise such means of support. Free meals or cent meals for poverty-
stricken school children are not Socialism. Industrial freedom will
enable parents to give their children solid food at home. Free food
to the workers cuts wages and kills the fighting spirit."

The American "syndicalists" are not opposed to political
action, but they want to use it exclusively for the purposes
of industrial democracy.

While Messrs. Haywood and Bohn by no means take an
anarchistic position, they show no enthusiasm for the capital-
ist-collectivist proposals that present governments should
take control of industry. They are not hostile to all govern-
ment, but they think that democracy applied directly to in-
dustry would be all the government required : —

"In the shop there must be government. In the school there
must be government. In the conduct of the great public services
there must be government. We have shown that Socialism will
make government democratic throughout. The basis of this free-
dom will be the freedom of the individual to develop his powers.
People will be educated in freedom. They will work in freedom.
They will live in freedom. . . .

"Socialism will establish democracy in the shop. Democracy
in the shop will free the working class. The working class, through
securing freedom for itself, will liberate the race."

• Even the American " syndicalists," however, attach more
importance to economic than to political action. Hitherto
revolutionary Socialists have agreed that the only construc-
tive work possible under capitalism was that of education and
organization. The " syndicalists " also agree that nothing
peculiarly socialistic can be done to-day by political action,
but they are reformists as to the immediate possibilities of
economic action. Here they believe revolutionary principles
can be applied even under capitalism. Even the conserva-

SYNDICALISM 375

live and purely businesslike effort to secure a little more
wages by; organized action, they believe, can be converted
here and now into a class struggle of working class vs. capi-
talists. What is needed is only organization of all the unions
and a revolutionary policy. With the possibilities of a revo-
lutionary union policy when capitalism has largely exhausted
its program of political reforms and economic betterment and
when Socialism has become the political Opposition, I deal in
following chapters. But syndicalists, even in America, say
revolutionary tactics can be applied now — Mr. Haywood,
for instance, feels that the only thing necessary for a suc-
cessful revolutionary and Socialistic general strike in France
or America to-day, is sufficient economic organization.

Mr. Debs admits the need of revolutionary tactics as well
as revolutionary principles and even says : " We could better
succeed with reactionary principles and revolutionary tactics
than with revolutionary principles and reactionary tactics."
He admits also that Socialists and revolutionary unionists are
inspired with an entirely new attitude towards society and
government and indorses as entirely sound certain expres-
sions from Haywood and Bonn's pamphlet which had been
violently attacked by reformist Socialists and conservative
unionists. Mr. Debs agrees with the former writers in their
definition of the attitude of the Socialist revolutionist's atti-
tude towards property: "He retains absolutely no respect
for the property ' rights ' of the profit takers. He will use
any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the
present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists.
Therefore he does not hesitate to break them." But he
does not agree that this new spirit offers any positive contri-
bution to Socialist tactics at the present time. Just as Herve"
has recently admitted that the superior political and eco-
nomic organization of the Germans were more important
than all the " sabotage " (violence) and "direct action" of
the French though he still favors the latter policies, so the
foremost American revolutionary opposes "direct action"
and "sabotage" altogether under present conditions. Both
deny that revolutionary economic action under capitalism is
any more promising than revolutionary political action. Even
nerve* defends his more or less friendly attitude to "direct
action" wholly on the ground that it is good practice for rev-
olution, not on Lagardelle's syndicalist ground that it means
the beginning of revolution itself (see below).

376 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

By much of their language Haywood and several industrial
unionists of this country would seem to class themselves
rather with Lagardeile and Labriola (see below) than with
nerve", Debs, and Mann. Haywood, for example, has said
that no Socialist can be a law-abiding citizen. Haywood's
very effective and law-abiding leadership in strikes at Law-
rence (1912) and elsewhere would suggest that he meant that
Socialists cannot be law-abiding by principle and under all
circumstances. But this statement as it was made, together
with many others, justifies the above classification. Debs, on
the contrary, claims that the American workers are law-
abiding and must remain so, on the whole, until the time of
the revolution approaches. " As a revolutionist," he writes,
" I can have no respect for capitalist property laws, nor
the least scruple about violating them," but Debs does
not believe there can be any occasion to put this principle
into effect until the workers have been politically and eco-
nomically organized and educated, and then only if they are
opposed by violence (see the International Socialist Review,
February, 1912).

The French and Italian advocates of revolutionary union-
ism also assign to the party a very secondary part, though they
are by no means, like the anarchists, opposed to all political
action. They do not as a rule oppose the Socialist parties,
but they protest against the view that Socialist activities
should be chiefly political. Their best-known spokesman in
Italy, Arturo Labriola, one of the most brilliant orators in
the country, and a professor in the University of Naples,
writes : —

"The Social Democracy will prove to have been the last capitalis-
tic party to which the defense of capitalistic society will have been
intrusted. The syndicalists [revolutionary unionists] ought to
get that firmly into their heads and draw conclusions from it in their
necessary relations with the official Socialist Party. The latter ought
to resign itself to being no more than a simple party of the legal demands
of the proletariat [i.e. the unions,] on the basis of existing society, and
not an anti-capitalist party." (9)

This is strong language and brings up some large questions.
Far from being displeased with the moderate and non-rev-
olutionary character of the Socialist Party, Labriola, him-
self a revolutionist, is so indifferent to the party as a direct
means to revolution, as to hope that it will drop its revolu-

SYNDICALISM 377

tionary claims altogether and become a humble and modest
but more useful tool of the unions. He even admitted in
conversation with the writer that, attaching no value to polit-
ical advance as such, he was not even anxious at this time
that the illiterate South Italians should be given a vote, since
they would long remain under the tutelage of the Catholic
Church.

One of the founders of the present French movement, its
earliest and chief theorist, Pelloutier, who has many followers
among the present officials of the French Federation of Labor,
went even further, denying to the government, and therefore
to all political parties, any vital function whatever. To Pel-
loutier the State is built exclusively upon "superfluous and
obnoxious political interests." The unions are expected to
work towards a Socialist society without much, if any, polit-
ical support. They are to use non-political means: "The
general strike as a purely economic means that excludes the
cooperation of parliamentary Socialists and demands only
labor union activity would necessarily suit the labor union
groups." (10)

The leading "syndicalist" writer to-day, Hubert Lagardelle,
feels not only that a Socialist Party is not likely to bring about
a Socialist society, but that any steps that it might try to take
in this direction to-day would necessarily be along the wrong
lines, since it would establish reforms by law rather than as
a natural upgrowth out of economic conditions and the
activities of labor unions, with the result that such reforms
would necessarily go no farther than "State Socialism." (11)

Lagardelle speaks of the "State Socialistic" reform tend-
ency as synonymous with "modern democracy." Because
it supposes that there are "general problems common to all
classes," says Lagardelle, democracy refuses to take into
account the real difference between men, which is that
they are divided into economic classes. Here we see the
central principle of Socialism exaggerated to an absurdity.
Few Socialists, even the most revolutionary, would deny that
there are some problems "common to all classes." Indeed,
the existence and importance of such problems is the very
reason why "State Socialism," of benefit to the masses, but
still more to the interest of the capitalists, is being so easily
and rapidly introduced. Lagardelle would be right, from
the Socialist standpoint, if he demanded that it should
oppose mere political democracy, or "State Socialism" in

378 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

proportion as these forces have succeeded in reorganizing
the capitalist State — or rather after they have been assimi-
lated by it. But to obstruct their present work is merely
to stand against the normal and necessary course of economic
and political evolution, as recognized by the Socialists them-
selves, a similar mistake to that made by the Populists and
their successors, who think they can prevent normal economic
evolution by dissolving the new industrial combinations and
returning to competition. Just as Socialists cannot oppose
the formation of trusts under normal circumstances, neither
can they oppose the extension of the modern State into the
field of industry or democratic reform, even though the
result is temporarily to strengthen capitalism and to decrease
the economic and political power of the working people.
One of the fundamental differences between the Socialist and
other political philosophies is that it recognizes ceaseless
political evolution and acts accordingly. It teaches that we
shall probably pass on to social democracy through a period
of monopoly rule, " State Socialism," and political reforms
that in themselves promise no relative advance, economic or
political, to the working class.

In a recent congress of the French Party, Jaures protested
against a statement of Lagardelle's that Socialism was op-
posed to democracy. "Democracy," Lagardelle answered,
"corresponds to an historical movement which has come to
an end ; syndicalism is an anti-democratic movement to the
extent that it is post-democratic. Syndicalism comes after
democracy ; it perfects the life which democracy was power-
less to organize." It is difficult to understand why Lagar-
delle persists in saying that a movement which thus supple-
ments democracy, which does what democracy was claiming
to do, and which is expected to supersede it, should on this
account be considered as "anti-democratic." Socialism
fights the "State Socialists" and opposes those whose de-
mocracy is merely political, but it is attacking not their
democracy or their "State Socialism," but their capitalism.

"Political society," says Lagardelle, "being the organiza-
tion of the coercive power of the State, that is to say, of
authority and the hierarchy, corresponds to an economic
regime which has authority and the hierarchy as its base." (12)
This proposition (the truth of which all Socialists would rec-
ognize in so far as it applies to political society in its present
form) seems sufficient to Lagardelle to justify his conclusion

SYNDICALISM 379

that we can no more expect Socialist results through the State,
than we could by association with capitalism. He does not
agree with the Socialist majority that, while capitalism em-
bodies a ruling class whose services may be dispensed with,
the State is rather a machine or a system which corresponds
not so much to capitalism, as to the system and machinery
of industry which capitalism controls.

Another and closely related idea of the syndicalists is that
all political parties, as well as governments, necessarily be-
come the tools of their leaders, that they always become
"machines," bureaucratically organized like governments.
Lagardelle adopts Rousseau's view that the essence of rep-
resentative government (all existing governments that are
not autocratic being representative) is "the inactivity of the
citizen" and urges that political parties, like society in general,
are divided between the governing and the governed. While
there is much truth in this analysis, — this being the situation
which it is sought to correct both in government and within
political parties by such means as direct legislation and the
recall, — Lagardelle does not seem to see that exactly the same
problem exists also in the labor unions. For among the
most revolutionary as among the most conservative of labor
organizations the leaders tend to acquire the same relative
and irresponsible power as they do in political parties. The
difficulty of making democracy work inheres in all organiza-
tions. It must be met and overcome ; it cannot be avoided.

Lagardelle's distrust of political democracy goes even
further than a mere criticism of representative government.
He thinks the citizen to-day unable to judge general political
questions at all, — so that in his view even direct democracy
would be useless. It is for this reason, he says, that parties
have it as an aim to act and to think in the citizen's place.
Lagardelle's remedy is not the establishment of direct de-
mocracy in government or in parties, but the organization
of the people to act together on "the concrete things of life";
that is, on questions of hours, wages, and other conditions
closely associated with their daily life and in his view adapted
to their understanding. He does not seem to see that such
questions lead almost immediately, not only to such larger
issues as are already presented by the leading political
parties, but also to the still larger ones proposed by the
Socialists.

Others of the syndicalists' criticisms, if taken literally,

380 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

would undoubtedly bring them in the end to the position
occupied by non-Socialist and anti-Socialist labor unionists.
Lagardelle frankly places labor union action not only above
political action, which Socialists, under many circumstances,
may justify, but above Socialism itself. "Even if the
dreams of the future of syndicalistic Socialism should never be
realized, — none of us has the secret of history, — it would
suffice for me to give it my full support, to know that it is at
the moment I am speaking the essential agent of civilization
in the world." Here is a labor union partisanship which is
certainly not equaled by the average conservative labor
leader, who has the modesty to realize that there are other
powerful forces making for progress aside from the move-
ment to which he happens to belong.

The syndicalists, or those who act along similar lines in
other countries, have brought new life into the Socialist
movement; their criticism has forced it to consider some
neglected questions, and has contributed new ideas which
are winning acceptance. The basis of their view is that the
working people cannot win by mere numbers or intelligence,
but must have a practical power to organize along radically
new lines and an ability to create new social institutions in-
dependently of capitalist opposition or aid.

Lagardelle writes: "There is nothing in syndicalism which can
recall the dogmatism of orthodox Socialism. The latter has summed
up its wisdom in certain abstract immovable formulas which it
intends willy-nilly to impose on life. . . . Syndicalism, on the con-
trary, depends on the continually renewed and spontaneous creations
of life itself, on the perpetual renewing of ideas, which cannot be-
come fixed into dogmas as long as they are not detached from their
trunk. We are not dealing with a body of intellectuals, with a
Socialist clergy charged to think for the working class, but with the
working class itself, which through its own experience is incessantly
discovering new horizons, unseen perspectives, unsuspected methods,
— in a word, new sources of rejuvenation." (13)

Here, at least, is a valuable warning to Socialism against
what its most revolutionary and enthusiastic adherents have
always felt is its chief danger.

The fact that lends force to Lagardelle's argument is that
the average workingman has a much more important, neces-
sary, and continuous function to fill as a member of the labor
unions than as a member of the Socialist parties. It still

SYNDICALISM 381

remains a problem of the first magnitude to every Socialist
party to give to its members an equally powerful daily in-
terest in that work. On the other hand, it must be said in
all fairness that the lack of active participation by the rank
and file is very common in the labor unions also, a handful
of men often governing and directing, sometimes even at
the most critical moments.

It is the boast of the syndicalists that in their plan of rev-
olutionary unionism, practice and theory become one, that
actions become revolutionary as well as words — "Men
are classed," says Lagardelle, "according to their acts and
not according to their labels. The revolutionary spirit comes
down from heaven onto the earth, becomes flesh, manifests
itself by institutions, and identifies itself with life. The daily
act takes on a revolutionary value, and social transformation,
if it comes some day, will only be the generalization of this
act." It is true that Lagardelle's "direct action" tends to-
wards revolution, but does it tend towards Socialism ? His
Answer is that it does. But his answer itself indicates the
tendency of syndicalism to drift back into conservative
unionism and the mere demand for somewhat more wages.
Socialist organizations, he says, "must necessarily be trained
in actions of no great revolutionary moment, since these are
the only kind of actions now possible, and in agitation ; that
is, the conversion or the wakening of the will of the working
people to desire and to demand an entirely different life,
which their intelligence has shown them to be possible, and
which they feel they are able to obtain through their
organizations." (14) (My italics.)

Not all members of the French " syndicats " (labor unions)
are theoretical syndicalists of the dogmatic kind, like La-
gardelle. Yet even men like Guerard, recently head of the
railway union, and Niel of the printers, recently secretary of
the Federation of Labor, both belonging to the less radical
faction, are in favor of the use of the general strike under
several contingencies, and stand for a union policy directed
towards the ultimate abolition of employers. But this
does not mean that they believe the unions can succeed in
either of these efforts if acting alone, or even if assisted in
Parliament by a party which represents only the unions, acts
as their tool, and therefore brings them no outside assistance.
Such men, together with others more radical, like Andre"
and the Guesdists in the Federation, realize that a larger and

382 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

more democratic movement is needed in connection with the
unions before there is any possibility of accomplishing the
great social changes at which, as Socialists, they aim. (As
evidence, see the proceedings of any recent convention of the
Confederation Generale de Travail.)

Lagardelle, however, is a member of the Socialist Party and
was recently even a candidate for the French Chamber of Dep-
uties. Other prominent members of the Party as revolution-
ary as he and as enthusiastic partisans of the Confederation
de Travail (Federation of Labor) are stronger in their allegi-
ance to the Party. And there are signs that even in France
syndicalism is losing its anti-political tendency. Herve, who
demanded at the beginning of 1909 that the "directors of the
Socialist Party cure themselves of 'Parliamentary idiocy"
(his New Year's wish), expressed at the beginning of 1910 the
wish that "certain of the dignitaries of the Federation of
Labor should cure themselves of a syndicalist and laborite
idiocy, a form of idiocy not less dangerous or clownish than
the other."

In fact, it may soon be necessary to distinguish a new
school of political syndicalism, which is well represented by
Paul Louis in his "Syndicalism against the State" (Le Syn-
dicalisme centre 1'Etat).

"Syndicalism is at the bottom," says Louis, "only a powerful
expression of that destructive and constructive effort which for years
has been shaking the old political and social regime, and is under-
mining slowly the ancient system of property. It points necessarily
to collectivism and communism. It represents Socialism in action,
in daily and continuous action. . . .

"Now the abolition of the State ... is the object of modern
Socialism. What distinguishes this modern Socialism from Utopian
Socialism which culminated towards 1848, whose best-known publi-
cists were Cabet, Pecqueur, Louis Blanc, Vidal, is precisely that it no
longer attributes to the State the power to transform, the capacity
to revolutionize, the role of magic regeneration, which the writers
in this dangerous phase of enthusiasm assigned to it. For the Uto-
pians all the machinery of a bureaucracy could be put at the service
of all the classes, fraternally reconciled in view of the coming social
regeneration. For contemporary Socialists since Karl Marx . . .
this bureaucratic machinery, whose function is to protect the exist-
ing system and to maintain an administrative, economic, financial,
political, and military guardianship must finally be disintegrated.
The new society can only be born at this price.

"There still exist in all countries groups of men or isolated in-

SYNDICALISM 383

dividuals who stand for collectivism, who claim to want the com-
plete emancipation of all workers, but who nevertheless adhere to
paternalism. These are called revisionists in Germany, reformists
in France, Italy, and Switzerland. . . . They go back, without
knowing it, to those theories of enlightened despotism which flourished
at the end of the eighteenth century in the courts of Vienna, St.
Petersburg, Madrid and Lisbon, the ridiculous inanity of which was
sufficiently well demonstrated by events. . . .

"But these Utopians of the present moment, these champions
of a limitless adaptation to circumstances, are destined to lose
ground more and more, according as Syndicalism expresses better
and better the independent action of the organized proletariat.

" In its totality the Socialism of the world is as anti-governmental
as Syndicalism, and in this is shown the identity of the two move-
ments, for it is difficult to distinguish the field of action of the one
from that of the other." (15)

We see here that the central idea of syndicalism, which is
undoubtedly, as Louis says, a revolutionary action against
existing governments, is not on this account anti-political ;
the foundation of this point of view is that labor union action
is bound sooner or later to evolve into syndicalism, which
in its essence is an effort to put industry in the immediate
control of the non-propertied working classes, without regard
to the attitude taken towards this movement by govern-
ments:—

"Those who have long imagined that some kind of coordination
would be brought about between old economic and social institu-
tions and the union organizations which would then be tolerated,
those who thought they could incorporate these industrial groups in
the mechanism of production and political society, were guilty of the
most stupefying of errors. They were ignorant both of the nature
of the State and of the essence of unionism; they were attempting
the squaring of the circle or perpetual motion; they had not an-
alyzed the process of disintegration which humanity is undergoing,
which, accelerated by the stream of industrialism, has given origin
to hostile classes subordinated to one another, incapable of coexist-
ing in a lasting equilibrium." (16)

We see here a complete agreement with the position of the
revolutionary majority among the Socialists. If syndicalist!
differs in any way from other tendencies in the feocia
movement, it does so through a difference of emphasis rather
than a difference of kind. It undoubtedly exaggerates t
possibilities of economic action, and underestimates those

384 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of political action. Louis, for example, says that the work-
ing people are the subj ects of capital, but the masters of pro-
duction, that they cannot live without suffering in the factory,
but that society cannot live without their labor. This, of
course, is only true if stated in the most unqualified form.
Society is able to dispense with all labor for a short time, and
with very many classes of labor for long periods. Moreover,
the forcing of labor at the point of the rifle is by no means
so impracticable during brief emergencies as is sometimes
supposed.

Syndicalism may, perhaps, be most usefully viewed as a
reaction against the tendency towards " parliamentarism "
or undue emphasis on political action, which has existed even
among revolutionary Socialists in Germany and elsewhere
(see Part II, Chapter V). Among the "revisionist" Socialists
of that country a great friendliness to labor union action ex-
isted, in view of the comparative conservatism of the unions.
For this same reason the revolutionaries became rather cold,
though never hostile, towards this form of action, and con-
centrated their attention on politics. In a word, syndicalism
is only to be understood in the light of the criticisms of revo-
lutionary Socialism as presented by Kautsky, just as the
standpoint of the latter can only be comprehended after it is
subjected to the syndicalist criticism — and doubtless both
positions, however one-sided they appear elsewhere, were
fairly justified by the economic and political situations in
France and Germany respectively. "Only as a political
party," says Kautsky, "can the working class as a whole come
to a firm and lasting union." He then proceeds to argue that
purely economic struggles are always limited either to a
locality, a town, or a province, or else to a given trade or
industry — the directly opposite view to that of the syndi-
calists, whose one object is also, undeniably, to bring about
a unity of the working class, though they claim that this can
be accomplished only by economic action, while from their point
of view it is political action that always divides the working
class by nation, section, and class.

"The pure and simple unionist," says Kautsky, "is con-
servative, even when he behaves in a radical manner ; on the
other hand, every true and independent political party
[Kautsky is speaking here of workingmen's organizations ex-
clusively] is always revolutionary by its very nature, even
when, according to its action, or even according to the con-

SYNDICALISM 385

sciousness of its members, it is still moderate." This again
is the exact opposite of the syndicalists' position. They would
say that a labor party unconnected with revolutionary eco-
nomic action would necessarily be conservative, no matter how
revolutionary it seemed. The truth from the broader revo-
lutionary standpoint is doubtless that neither political nor
economic action in isolation can long continue to be revolu-
tionary. Exclusively economic action soon leads to exclusive
emphasis on material and immediate gains, without reference
to the relative position of the working class or its future;
exclusively political action leads inevitably to concentration
on securing democratic political machinery and reforms which
by no means guarantee that labor is gaining on capital in the
race for power.

To Kautsky a labor party, it would seem, might be suffi-
cient in itself, even if economic action should, for any reason,
become temporarily impossible : —

"The formation and the activity of a special labor party which
wants to win political power for the working class already presup-
poses in a part of the laboring class a highly developed class con-
sciousness. But the activity of this labor party is the most power-
ful means to awaken and to further class consciousness in the masses
of labor, also. It knows only objects and tasks which have to do
with the whole proletariat ; the trade narrowness, the jealousies of
single, and separate organizations, find no place in it." (17)

It is easy to see how an equally strong case might be made
out for the educative, unifying, and revolutionary effect of
an aggressive labor union movement without any political
features. The truth would seem to be that any form of
organization that honestly represents the working class and
is at the same time militant — and no other — advances
Socialism. The objections to action exclusively political
hold also against action exclusively economic. Both trade
union action as such, which inevitably spends a large part of
its energies in trying to improve economic conditions in our
present society by trade agreements and other combinations
with the capitalists, and political action as such, which is
always drawn more or less into capitalistic efforts to improve
present society by political means is fundamentally conserv-
ative. What Socialism requires is not a political party in
the ordinary sense, but political organization and a political
program; not labor unions, as the term has been understood,
2c

386 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

but aggressive and effective economic organization, available
also for the most far-reaching economic and political ends.

It seems probable that the anti-political element in the new
revolutionary unionism will soon be outgrown. When this
happens, it will meet the revolutionary majority of the
Socialists on an identical platform. For this revolutionary
majority is steadily laying on more weight on economic
organization.

NOTE: The profound opposition between the "State Socialism" of the
Labour Party and the revolutionary aims and methods of genuine Socialism
and the new labor unionism appeared more clearly in the coal strike of 1912
than it had in the railway strike of the previous year. As Mr. Lloyd
George very truthfully remarked in Parliament, no leaders of the Labour
Party had committed themselves to syndicalism, while syndicalism and so-
cialism [i.e. the socialism of the Labour Party] were mutually destructive.
"We can console ourselves with the fact," said Mr. Lloyd George, "that
the best policeman for the syndicalists is the socialist [i.e. the Labourite]."

The conduct of many of the Labour Party leaders during this strike, as
during the railway strike, fully justified the confidence of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Mr. MacDonald, for example, spoke of syndicalism in
much the same terms as those used by Mr. Lloyd George. He viewed it as
evil, to be obviated by greater friendliness and consideration on the part of
employers towards employees, a position fully endorsed by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer and the other Radicals of the British Cabinet.

The coal strike throughout was, indeed, almost a repetition of the railway
strike. What I have said of the one applies, with comparatively slight changes,
to the other. Even the so-called Minimum Wage Law is essentially identical
with the methods adopted to determine the wages of railway employees.

CHAPTER VI
THE "GENERAL STRIKE"

NEARLY all strikes are more or less justified in Socialist eyes.
But those that involve neither a large proportion of the work-
ing class nor any broad social or political question are held
to be of secondary importance. On the other hand, the
"sympathetic" and "general" strikes, which are on such a
scale as to become great public issues, and are decided by the
attitude of public opinion and the government rather than
by the employers and employees involved, are viewed as a
most essential part of the class struggle, especially when in
their relation to probable future contingencies.

The social significance of such sympathetic or general
strikes is indeed recognized as clearly by non-Socialists as
by Socialists — even in America, since the great railroad
strike of 1894. The general strike of 1910 in Philadelphia,
for instance, was seen both in Philadelphia and in the country
at large as being a part of a great social conflict. "The
American nation has been brought face to face for the first
time with a strike," said the Philadelphia North American,
"not merely against the control of an industry or a group of
allied industries, but a strike of class against class, with the
lines sharply drawn. . . . And it is this antagonism, this
class war, intangible and immeasurable, that constitutes the
largest and most lamentable hurt to the city. It is, moreover,
felt beyond the city and throughout the entire nation." (My
italics). It goes without saying that all organs of non-
Socialist opinion feel that such threatening disturbances are
lamentable, for they certainly may lead towards a revolu-
tionary situation. Both in this country and Great Britain
the great railway strike of 1911 was almost universally re-
garded in this light.

The availability of a general strike on a national scale as a
means of assaulting capitalism at some future crisis or as a
present means of defending the ballot or the rights of labor
organizations or of preventing a foreign war, has for the past

387

388 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

decade been the center of discussion at many European
Socialist congresses. The recent Prime Minister of France,
Briand, was long one of the leading partisans of this method
of which he said only a few years before he became Premier :
"It has the seductive quality that it is after all the exercise
of an incontestable right. It is a revolution which com-
mences with legality. In refusing the yoke of misery, the
workingman revolts in the fullness of his rights; illegality
is committed by the capitalist class when it becomes a prov-
ocator by trying to violate a right which it has itself con-
secrated." That Briand meant what he said is indicated by
the advice he gave to soldiers who might be ordered to fire
against the strikers in such a crisis. "If the order to fire
should persist," said Briand, "if the tenacious officer should
wish to constrain the will of the soldiers in spite of all. . . .
Oh, no doubt the guns might go off, but it might not be in
the direction ordered" — and the universal assumption of all
public opinion at that time and since was that he was ad-
vising the soldiers that under these circumstances they would
be justified in shooting their officers.

The Federation of Labor of France has long adopted the
idea of the general strike as appropriate for certain future con-
tingencies, as has also the French Socialist Party — "To
realize the proposed plan," the Federation declares, "it will
be necessary first of all to put the locomotives in a condition
where they can do no harm, to stop the circulation of the
railways, to encourage the soldiers to ground their arms."

As thus conceived by Briand and the Federation, few will
question the revolutionary character of the proposed general
strike. But in what circumstances do the Socialists expect
to be able to make use of this weapon? The Socialists of
many countries have given the question careful consideration
in hundreds of writings and thousands of meetings, including
national and international congresses. Through the gradual
evolution of the plans of action developed in all these con-
ferences and discussions, they have come to distinguish
sharply between a really general strike, e.g. a nation-wide
railroad strike, when used for revolutionary purposes, and
other species of widespread strikes which have merely a
tendency in a revolutionary direction, such as the Philadelphia
trouble I have mentioned, and they have decided from these
deliberations, as well as considerable actual experience, just
what forms of general strike are most promising and under

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 389

what contingencies each form is most appropriate. Henriette
Roland-Hoist has summed up the whole discussion and its
conclusions in an able monograph (indorsed by Kautsky
and others) from which I shall resume a few of the leading
points. (1) She concludes that railroad strikes for higher
wages, unless for some modest advance approved by a large
part of the public, like the recent British strike (which, in view
of the rising cost of living, was literally to maintain "a living
wage ") , can only lead to a ferocious repression. For a nation-
wide railroad strike is paid for by the whole nation, and its
benefits must be nation-wide if it is to secure the support
of that part of the public without, which it is foredoomed
to failure. Otherwise, says Roland-Hoist, "the greater has
been the success of the working people at the beginning, the
greater has been the terror of the middle classes," and as a
consequence the measures of repression in the end have been
proportionately desperate. But this applies only when such
strikes are for aggressive ends, like that of 1910 in France,
and promise nothing to any element of society except the
employees immediately involved.

If a nation-wide railroad strike or a prolonged coal strike
is aggressive, it will inevitably be lost unless it has a definite
public object. And the only aggressive political aim that
would justify, in the minds of any but those immediately in-
volved, all the suffering and disorder a railroad strike of any
duration would entail, would be a social revolution to effect
the capture of government and industry. The only other cir-
cumstances in which such a strike might be employed with
that support of a part at least of the public which is essential
to its success would be as a last resort, when some great social
injustice was about to be perpetrated, like a declaration of
war, or an effort to destroy the Socialist Party or the labor
unions. Jaures says rightly, that even then it would be "a
last and desperate means less suited to save one's self than to
injure the enemy."

These conclusions as to the possibilities and limitations of
the general strike are based on a careful study of the military
and other powers of the existing governments. "The power
of the modern State," says Roland-Hoist, "is superior to that
of the working class in all its material bases either of a political
or of an economic character. The fact of political strikes
can change this in no way. The working class can no more
conquer economically, through starvation, than it can through

390 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the use of powers of the same kind which the State employs,
that is, through force. In only one point is the working class
altogether superior to the ruling class — hi purpose. . . .
Governmental and working class organizations are of entirely
different dimensions. The first is a coercive, the second a
voluntary, organization. The power of the first rests prima-
rily on its means of physical force ; that of the latter, which
lacks these means, can break the physical superiority of the
State only by its moral superiority." It is almost needless to
add that by "moral superiority" Roland-Hoist means some-
thing quite concrete, the willingness of the working people to
perform tasks and make sacrifices for the Socialist cause that
they would 'not make for the State even under compulsion.
It is only through advantages of this kind, which it is expected
will greatly increase with the future growth of the movement,
that Socialists believe that, supported by an overwhelming
majority of the people, a time may arrive when they can
make a successful use of the nation-wide general strike. It
is hoped that the support of the masses of the population will
then make it impossible for governments to operate the rail-
roads by military means, as they have hitherto done in Rus-
sia, Hungary, France, and other countries. It is thought by
many that the general strike of 1905 in Russia, for example,
might have attained far greater and more lasting results if
the peasants had been sufficiently aroused and intelligent to
destroy the bridges and tracks, and it is not doubted that a
Socialist agricultural population consisting largely of laborers
(see Chapter II) would do this in such a crisis.

Here, then, are the two conditions under which it is thought
by Roland-Hoist and the majority of Socialists that the
general strike may some day prove the chief means of bring-
ing about a revolution: the active support of the majority
of the people, and the superior organization and methods
and the revolutionary purpose of the working classes.

In the preparation of the working people to bring about a
general strike when the proper time arrives, lies a limitless
field for immediate Socialist activity. Both Jaur&s and
Bebel feel that it is even likely that the general strike will also
have to be used on a somewhat smaller scale even before the
supreme crisis comes. Jaures thinks that it will be needed
to bring about essential reforms or to prevent war, and Bebel
believes that it will very likely have to be used to defend ex-
isting political and economic rights of the working class; in

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 391

other words, to protect the Party and the unions from de-
struction. At the Congress at Jena in 1905 the conservative
trade union official, von Elm, together with a majority of the
speakers, argued that it was possible that an attempt would
be made to take away from the German working people the
right of suffrage, the freedom of the press and assemblage and
the right of organization. In such a case he and others ad-
vocate a general strike, though he said he fully realized it
would be a bloody one. "We must reckon with this," he
said. "As a matter of course, we wish to shed no blood, but
our enemies drive us into the situation. . . . The moment
comes when you must be ready to give up your blood and
your property [here he was interrupted by stormy applause].
Prepare yourselves for this possibility. Our youths must
be brought up so that among the soldiers here and there will
be a man who will think twice before he shoots at his father
and mother [as Kaiser Wilhelm publicly insists he must],
and at the same time at freedom." The reception of von
Elm's speech showed that his words represented the feeling
of the whole German movement. Bebel spoke with the
same decision, advocating the use of the general strike under
the same conditions as did von Elm, while at the next con-
gress at Mannheim he declared that it would also be justified,
under certain circumstances, not only for protecting existing
rights, but for extending them, e.g. for the purpose of obtaining
universal and equal suffrage in Prussia. Bebel did not think
that the party or the unions were strong enough at that
moment to use the general strike for other than defensive
purposes, but he said that, if they were able to double their
strength, — and it now seems they will have accomplished
this within a very few years, — then the time would doubtless
arrive when it would be worth while to risk the employment
of this rather desperate measure for aggressive purposes
also.

While Socialism is thus traveling steadily in the direction of
a revolutionary general strike, capitalist governments are
coming to regard every strike of the first importance as a
sort of rebellion. In discussing the Socialist possibilities of
a national railroad strike, Roland-Hoist, representing the
usual Socialist view, says that it makes very little difference
whether the roads are nationally or privately owned; in
either case such a strike is likely to be considered by cap-
italistic governments as something like rebellion.

392 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

But while this applies only to the employees of the most
important services like railroads, when privately operated,
it applies practically to all government employees ; there is
an almost universal tendency to regard strikes against the
government as being mutiny — an evidence of the profoundly
capitalistic character of government ownership and "State
Socialism" which propose to multiply the number of such
employees. Here, too, the probable governmental attitude
towards a future general strike is daily indicated.

President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University,
has written that any strike of "servants of the State, in any
capacity — military, naval, or civil," should be considered
both treason and mutiny.

"In my judgment loyalty and treason," he writes, "ought to
mean the same thing in the civil service that they do in military and
naval services. The door to get out is always open if one does not
wish to serve the public on these terms. Indeed, I am not sure that
as civilization progresses loyalty and treason in the civil services will
not become more important and more vital than loyalty and treason
in the military and naval services. The happiness and the pros-
perity of a community might be more easily wrecked by the paralysis
of its postal and telegraph services, for example, than by a mutiny
on shipboard. . . . President Roosevelt's attitude on all this ^vas
at times very sound, but he wabbled a good deal in dealing with
specific cases. In the celebrated Miller Case at the Government
Printing Office he laid down in his published letter what I conceive
to be the sound doctrine in regard to this matter. It was then made
plain to the printers that to leave their work under pretense of strik-
ing was to resign, in effect, the places which they held in the public
service, and that if those places were vacated they would be filled in
accordance with the provisions of the civil service act, and not by re-
appointment of the old employees after parley and compromise. . . .
To me the situation which this problem presents is, beyond com-
parison, the most serious and the most far-reaching which the modern
democracies have to face." Dr. Butler concludes that this question
"will wreck every democratic government in the world unless it is
faced sturdily and bravely now, and settled on righteous lines."
(My italics.) (2)

Our Ex-President, however, has ceased apparently to
"wabble." In Mr. Roosevelt's medium, the Outlook,
an editorial on the strike of the municipal street cleaners of
New York City reads in part as follows : —

Men who are employed by the public cannot strike. They can, and
sometimes they do, mutiny. When they should be treated not as strikers
but as mutineers.

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 393

This issue was presented by the refusal of the men to do what
they were ordered to do. When soldiers do that in warfare they are
given short shrift. Of course, in combating accumulating dirt and its
potent ally, disease, an army of street cleaners is not face to face with
any such acute public dangers as those confronting a military force ;
and therefore insubordination among street cleaners does not call
for any such severity as that which is absolutely necessary in war
times ; but the principle in the one case is the same as that in the other —
those who disrupt the forces of public defense range themselves on the
side of the public enemy. They are not in any respect on the same
basis as the employees of a private employer. They are wage earners
only in the sense that soldiers are wage earners. (3)

When Senator La Follette indorsed the right of railway
mail clerks to organize, President Taft said (May 14, 1911) : —

"This presents a very serious question, and one which, if decided
in favor of the right of government employees to strike and use the
boycott, will be full of danger to the government and to the republic.

"The government employees of France resorted to it and took the
government by the throat. The executive was entirely dependent
upon these employees for its continuance.

"When those in executive authority refused to acquiesce in the
demands, the government employees struck, and then with the help-
lessness of the government and the destruction of all authority and
the choking of government activities it was seen that to allow govern-
ment employees the use of such an instrument was to recognize rev-
olution as a lawful means of securing an increase in compensation
for one class, and that a privileged class, at the expense of all the
public. . . .

"The government employees are a privileged class whose work is
necessary to carry on the government and upon whose entry into
the government service it is entirely reasonable to impose conditions
that should not be and ought not to be imposed upon those who serve
private employers."

Here the Socialists join issue squarely with the almost uni-
versally prevalent non-Socialist opinion. They do not con-
sider government employment a "privilege" nor any strike
whatever as ' ' mutiny, " " treason, " or " rebellion. ' ' Socialists
believe that the only possible means of maintaining democracy
at all in this age when government employees are beginning
to increase in numbers more rapidly than those of private
industry, is that they should be allowed to maintain their
right to organize and to strike — no matter how great diffi-
culties it may involve. To decide the question as President

394 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Butler wishes, or as President Taft implies it should be
decided, Socialists believe, would mean to turn every govern-
ment into a military organization. The time is not far dis-
tant when in all the leading nations a very large part and in
some cases a majority of the population will be in govern-
ment employment. If even the present limited rights of
organization are done away with, and the military laws of
subordination are applied, Socialists ask, shall we not have
exactly that military and autocratic bureaucracy, that "State
Socialism" which Spencer so rightly feared? The fact that
these perfectly legal and necessary strikes may some day lead
to revolution is capitalism's misfortune, which society will
not permit it to cure by turning the clock back to ab-
solutism. The question of the organization of government
employees, one of the most important to-day, will, as Presi-
dent Butler says, be the crucial question of the near future.

It is in France that the question has come to the first test,
not because the French bureaucracy is more numerous than
that of Prussia and some other Continental countries, but
because of the powerful democratic and Socialist tendency
that has grown up along with this bureaucracy and is now
directed against it. Especially interesting is the fact that
Briand, who not long ago advocated the Socialist general
strike and certainly realized its danger to present government
as well as its possibilities for Socialism, has, as Premier,
evolved measures of repression against organizations of State
employees more stringent than have been introduced in any
country making the slightest pretension to democratic or
semi-democratic government.

The world first became aware of the importance of this
issue at the time of the organization and the strike of the
French telegraphers and post office employees in the early
part of 1909, and again in the railway strike in 1910. As
early as 1906 the organized postal employees had been defi-
nitely refused the right to strike, and it became manifest that
if they attempted to use this weapon to correct the very
serious grievances under which they suffered, it would be
looked upon as "a kind of treason against the State." At
the end of 1908, however, after having discussed the matter
for many years, a congress of all the employees of the State
was held. More than twenty different associations partic-
ipated and decided unanimously to claim the full rights of
other labor organizations. Finally, when these organizations

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 395

appealed to the General Federation of Labor to help them,
there came the strike of 1909. Unfortunately for the post-
men, the French railway and miners' unions were at the
moment still in relatively conservative hands, and the ma-
jority of their members were as yet by no means anxious to
aid in the general strike movement. After a brilliant success
in their first effort, a second strike a few weeks later proved
a total failure.

The government then began to make it clear that public
employees were to be allowed no right to strike, and JaurSs
pointed out that it was trying to carry this new repressive
legislation by accompanying it by new pension laws and other
concessions to the State employees, — a repetition of the old
policy of more bread and less power, which is likely to play
a more and more important role every year as we enter into
the State capitalistic period.

The character of the organizations allowed for govern-
ment employees, under the new laws, would remind one
of Prussia or Russia rather than France. While certain
forms of association are permitted, the right to strike is pre-
cluded, and the various associations of government employees
are forbidden either to form any kind of federation or to
unite with other unions outside of government employments.
"Councils of discipline are created where the employees are
represented," but "in the case of a collected or concerted ces-
sation of work all disciplinary penalties may be inflicted with-
out the intervention of the councils of discipline ; courts may
order the dissolution of any union at the request of the minis-
try," which means that at any moment a police war may be
instituted against these organizations, in the true Russian
style.

The reply of the postmen's organization to this kind of
legislation is, that the administration of the post office is an
industrial and commercial administration; that it is a vast
enterprise of general utility; that the notion of loyalty or
treason is entirely misplaced in this field. They have de-
clared that the new legislation is wrong "because it perpetu-
ates the bureaucratic tradition; because with a contempt
for all the necessities of modern life it discountenances organi-
zation of labor ; because it has constituted a repressive legal
condition for wage earners; and because it is an act of au-
thority which has nothing in common with free contract."

Here we see the public employees, supported by the Social-

396 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

ists, insisting on industrial and commercial considerations,
on the rights of individuals and on free contract, as against
the capitalists and governing classes, who claim to defend
these very principles from supposed Socialist attacks, but
abandon them the moment they threaten capitalist profits
and capitalist rule. This attitude of the French Socialist
shows the very heart of the Socialist situation. In fact, it is
only as private capitalism becomes State capitalism, or "State
Socialism," that Socialists will be able to show what their
position really is. It is only then that the coercive aspect of
capitalism, which is now partly latent and partly obscured
by certain functions that it has still to fill in the development
of society, will become visible to all eyes.
1 The French railroad strike of October, 1910, brought the
question of organizations of government employees still more
into international prominence. Until the recent British up-
heaval it was, perhaps, the greatest and most menacing strike
in modern history. It is true that its apparent object was
only a few just, and relatively insignificant economic conces-
sions — which were granted for the most part immediately
after the struggle. But behind these, as every one realized,
lay the question of the right of government employees to
organize and to strike and the determination of the French
Socialists and labor unionists to use the opportunity to take
a step towards the "general strike."

Never has the issue between capitalism and Socialism been
more sharply defined than in Premier Briand's impulsively
frank declaration after the strike (though it was later re-
tracted) : "I say emphatically, if the laws have not given the
government the means of keeping the country master of its
railways and the national defense, it would not have hesitated
to take recourse to illegality."

This is almost the exact declaration of Ex-President Roose-
velt in his Decoration Day speech in 1911, when he said that
really revolutionary men dreaded and hated him because they
knew that he wouldn't let the Constitution stand in the way
of punishing them if they did wrong.

Milder but no less positive expressions of an intention to
use illegal means to coerce labor, if it does not act as present
authorities dictate, were to be heard from responsible sources
both in England and America after the recent British rail-
way strike. The non-Socialist press then came almost unan-
imously to the conclusion that an attempt must be made to

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 397

take away the sole weapon by which labor is able to protect
itself or advance its position as soon as "the public" is dam-
aged by its use — which amounts to reducing wage earners
to the status of children, soldiers, or other wards of the com-
munity. "If railroad and telegraph strikes are many and
violent," said Collier's Weekly, "they will encourage govern-
ment ownership without unionization." (4)

The Outlook stopped short of government ownership, but
announced a similar principle: "The railways are public
highways; they must be controlled by the nation for the
public good; the operation of the railways must not be
stopped because of disputes ; and, as a corollary to this last
law of necessity, the government must furnish an adequate
and just method of settling railway disputes." (5) Every
step in government control is to be accompanied by a step
in the control of labor, and restriction of the power of labor
unions. The right of employees to protect themselves by
leaving their work in a body is to be taken away completely,
while the right to discharge or punish is to remain intact in
persons over whom the employees can have little or no control.

Governments are evidently ready to proceed to illegality
for the sake of self-preservation — even from a perfectly legal
attack, if it threatens to destroy them or to transfer the
government into the hands of the non-capitalist classes.
Of course a capitalist government can pass "laws, "e.g.
martial law, under which anything it chooses to do against
its opponents becomes "legal" and anything effective its
opponents do becomes illegal. In the present age of general
enlightenment, however, this method does not even deceive
Russian peasants. But the French government is now
turning to this device. Briand explained away his sensa-
tional declaration above quoted, and then proposed a law
by which striking on a railway becomes a crime and almost
a felony. This met universal approval in the capitalistic
press and universal denunciation in that of the Socialists
and labor unions. The Boston Herald, for example, said:
"The Executive must be armed with greater authority than
he now possesses. No Premier must be forced to say, as
M. Briand did recently, that, with or without law, national
supremacy will be preserved in case it is challenged by allied
workers for the State, as well as by other toilers." Here
there is no effort to disguise the fact that the new legal form
is the exact equivalent of the illegal force formerly proposed.

398 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Now the peasants and the lower middle classes of France,
as well as the working people (land and opportunities being
more and more difficult to obtain), are becoming extremely
radical. Though they do not send Socialist deputies to the
Chamber, they send representatives who are very suspicious
of arbitrary, undemocratic, and centralized authority. Only
215 members of the Chamber could be induced to approve
of the government's conduct during the strike of 1910, while
more than 200 abstained from voting on this point, and 166
voted in the negative. The proposed measures of repression
were carried by a small majority, but it is not likely that
they can be enforced many years without bringing about
another and far more revolutionary crisis. Briand and his
associates, Millerand and Viviani, were forced to resign,
partly on account of their conduct in this strike, and it is
possible that after another election or two the Chamber
will no longer give its consent to this relegation of working-
men to the status of common soldiers. Only six months
after the strike, Briand's successor, Monis, with the consent
of the Chamber, was bringing governmental pressure to bear
on the privately owned railways to force them to take back
dismissed strikers. In the next ministry, that of Caillaux,
the Minister of Labor, Augagneur, the former Socialist, pur-
sued the same policy of pressing for the reinstatement of a
large part of the discharged employees of the private rail-
roads while insisting that the employees of government
railroads could not be allowed to strike. And again, at the
end of 1911, the government secured only 286 votes in favor
of this policy, to 193 against it.

France is by no means the only country where the question
of strikes of government employees has become all-important.
When the railways were nationalized in Italy there was con-
siderable Socialist opposition on the ground that the em-
ployees were likely to lose a part of such rights as they had
had when in private employment, and it turned out just as
was feared. The position of the Italian Socialists on the
subject is as interesting as that of the French. The Congress
at Florence in 1908 resolved that "considering the fact that
a strike of municipalized or nationalized services represents,
not the struggle of the proletariat against a private capitalistic
enterprise, but the conflict of a class against the collectivity,
whence the difficulty of its success, the employees in public
service ought to be advised not to proclaim a strike unless

THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 399

urged on by the most compelling motives and when every
other means have failed; but "taking it into consideration
at the same time that in the present condition of society the
working people in public service have no other means to
guarantee the defense of their rights, and that in critical
moments of history the suspension of public services is among
the most efficacious arms of which the proletariat can avail
itself to disorganize the defense of the government, any dis-
position to bring into legislation the principle of the abolition
of the right to strike is dangerous" and "any attempt in that
direction" must be defeated.

The gulf between those who consider the collective refusal
of the organizations of government employees to work under
conditions they do not accept, as being " treason " and
"mutiny," and those who feel that such an organization is
the very basis of industrial democracy of the future and the
sole possible guarantee of liberty, is surely unbridgeable.

The clash between the classes on this question of liveli-
hood and liberty is already momentous, but its full signifi-
cance can only be realized when the Socialist aim is recalled.
As employees of railroads, of governments, and of industries
become Socialists, they will not only be ready to strike to
raise their wages, or to protect the unions and the Socialist
Party, or to prevent military reaction, but also — when they
have the majority with them — to take possession of govern-
ment.

An editorial in the New York Call (October 31, 1911) shows
how most American Socialists expect the general strike to
work : —

"The failure of one 'general' strike, or any attempt to carry out a
general strike, does not bankrupt or destroy the working class, for
the reason that it is that class which holds the future in its hands.
Nor does such f aihire help capitalism — the decaying system — in
any way. On the contrary, it helps disintegrate it, and the failure
itself is merely the necessary prelude to a still stronger assault by
the same method. The general strike seems to be like what is said of
democracy, that the cure for democracy is still more democracy.
In the same way the cure for the general strike is to make it still
more ' general ' in character. The less ' general ' it is, the less chance
has it of success, and the more 'general' it can be made, the more
certain is it of success.

" And that success may not, and very likely will not, take the form
hoped for by those who advocate it as a means of immediate or even
ultimate social revolution. But even this, if true, is no argument

400 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

against its use. It will, however, bring the social revolution nearer
in other ways.

" We hardly, for instance, expect to see the capitalists, paralyzed by
the most 'general' of general strikes surrender their property off-
hand to the victorious proletariat in despair of being able to operate
it themselves. Much as we would like to see the working class march
in and take possession of the abandoned factories and workshops
in this manner, and commence operations under their collective
ownership, the vision can only remain while other factors are dis-
regarded. There is possibly much more flexibility and elasticity in
the capitalist system than is usually imagined by Socialists. As
William Morris tells old John Ball, the 'rascal hedge-priest,'
'Mastership hath many shifts' before it finally goes down and out.

" If we were to venture an opinion, the course and procedure of the
general strike, with special reference to the railroads and allied
industries, will follow something in this order.

" General strikes will succeed one another intermittently, each be-
coming more 'general,' the method finally establishing itself as a
settled policy of the workers in enforcing their demands. Some
may fail, but from time to time they will grow more 'general' and
more powerful, and will wrest more concessions from the owners,
until the point is reached where the railroad business will return
practically no private profits to its owners. And when this point
is reached, or the certainty of its being reached is plainly seen, then
mastership will make its next shift. There will be two alternatives.

"The first is literal, physical suppression, by the armed forces of the
nation still under control of the capitalists, and greatly augmented
for the purpose. This, however, for a multitude of reasons, is a most
dangerous policy and much more 'impossible' than the general
strike. Instead of postponing social revolution, it rather accelerates
its approach.

" The other alternative, and the one by all means most likely to be
adopted, is government ownership of the railroads, with the capital-
ists, of course, as owners of the government. This will undoubtedly
be ushered in as 'State Socialism/ Laws will be passed constituting
the railroad workers as direct servants of the State, and forbidding
the general strike or any other kind of strike.

" The prohibition will not have the desired effect. If attempted
to be enforced, it merely throws capitalist society back on the first
dangerous alternative policy we have mentioned. But it will give
capitalism a breathing spell, and a chance to 'spar for wind' for a
while, which is the best it can expect. The general strike will still be
utilized to assail the capitalist State and its property.

"The final struggle will be a political one, for the capture of the
State from the hands of the capitalists, and such capture will mean
the transfer of capitalist State-owned property to collective property
and the establishment of industrial democracy, or Socialism."

CHAPTER VII

REVOLUTION IN DEFENSE OF CIVIL
GOVERNMENT

"THE workers do not yet understand," says Debs, "that
they are engaged in a class struggle, and must unite their
class and get on the right side of that struggle economically,
politically, and in every other way — strike together, vote
together, and, if necessary, fight together." (1) Socialists
are prepared to use force when governments resort to arbi-
trary violence — for example, to martial "law." In the
Socialist view no occasion whatever justifies the suspension
of the regular government the people has instituted — and
even if such an occasion could arise there is no authority
to which they would consent to give arbitrary power. Mili-
tary "government" is not government, but organized vio-
lence.

Tolstoi's masterly language on this matter will scarcely
be improved upon : —

"The slavery of the working people is due to this, that there are
governments. But if the slavery of the laborers is due to the govern-
ment, the emancipation is naturally conditioned by the abolition of
the existing governments and the establishment of new governments,
— such as will make possible the liberation of the land from owner-
ship, the abolition of taxes, and the transference of the capital and
the factories into the power and control of the working people.

"There are men who recognize this issue as possible, and who are
preparing themselves for it. ... So long as the soldiers are in
the hands of the government, which lives on taxes and is connected
with the owners of land and of capital, a revolution is impossible.
And so long as the soldiers are in the hands of the government, the
structure of life will be such as those who have the soldiers in their
hands want it to be.

"The governments, who are already in possession of a disciplined
force, will never permit the formation of another disciplined force.
All the attempts of the past century have shown how vain such
attempts are. Nor is there a way out, as the Socialists believe, by
means of forming a great economic force which would be able to
2D 401

402 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

fight successfully against the consolidated and ever more con-
solidating force of the capitalists. Never will the labor unions,
who may be in possession of a few miserable millions, be able to fight
against the economic power of the multimillionaires, who are always
supported by the military force. Just as little is there a way out
as is proposed by other Socialists, by getting possession of the ma-
jority of the Parliament. Such a majority in the Parliament will
not attain anything, so long as the army is in the hands of the govern-
ments. The moment the decrees of the Parliament are opposed to
the interests of the ruling classes, the government will close and dis-
perse such a parliament, as has been so frequently done and as will
be done so long as the army is in the hands of the government."

Tolstoi, in spite of his contrary impression, here reaches
conclusions which are the same as those of the Socialists;
for they are well aware that armies are likely to be used to
dissolve Parliaments and labor unions.

"The introduction of socialistic principles into the army will not
accomplish anything," Tolstoi continues. "The hypnotism of the
army is so artfully applied that the most free-thinking and rational
person will, so long as he is in the army, always do what is demanded
of him. Thus there is no way out by means of revolution or in
Socialism."

Here Tolstoi is again mistaken, for at this point also Social-
ists agree with him completely. The soldier, they agree,
must be reached, and some think must even be led to act,
before he reaches the barracks — whether he is about to
enter them for military training in times of peace or for serv-
ice in times of war.

"If there is a way out," concludes Tolstoi, "it is the one which has
not been used yet, and which alone incontestably destroys the whole
consolidated, artful, and long-established governmental machine
for the enslavement of the masses. This way out consists in refusing
to enter into the army, before one is subjected to the stupefying and
corrupting influence of discipline.

"This way out is the only one which is possible and which at
the same time is inevitably obligatory for every individual per-
son." (2)

Socialists differ from the great Russian, not in their analysis
of the situation, but in their more practical remedy. They
would organize the campaign against military service instead
of leaving it to the individual, and after they had converted

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 403

a sufficient majority to their views they would not hesitate
to use any kind of force that seemed necessary to put an end
to government by force. But they would not proceed to
such lengths until their political and economic modes of
action were forcefully prevented from further development.
If civil government is suspended to combat the great general
strike towards which Socialists believe society is moving
they will undertake to restore it or to set up a new one to
replace that which the authorities have "legally" destroyed.
I say legally because all capitalist governments have provided
for this contingency by giving their executives the right to
suspend government when they please — on the . pretext
that its existence is threatened by internal disorder. It has
been generally and publicly agreed among capitalist authori-
ties that this power shall be used in the case of a general
strike — as the British government declared, at the time of
the recent railway strike, whether there is extensive popular
violence or not.

I have shown that the Socialists contemplate the use of
the general strike whenever, in vital matters, governments
refuse to bow to the clearly expressed will of the majority,
and that they recognize the difficulties to be overcome before
such a measure can be used successfully. Of course the over-
whelming majority of the population will have to be against
the government. But the military aspect of the question
may possibly make it necessary that the majority to be se-
cured will have to be even greater than was at first contem-
plated, and that an even more intense struggle will have to
be carried on. The Bismarcks of the world are already
using armies as strike breakers and training them especially
for this purpose, while even the more democratic and peaceful
States, like England and France, are rapidly following in
the same direction. Of course, as Bismarck said, not all of
a large army can be so used, but there is a strong tendency
in Russia and Germany, which may be imitated elsewhere,
for the military leaders to concentrate their efforts and
attention on the picked and more or less professional part
of their armies, and it is this part that is being used for strike-
breaking purposes.

No one has dealt more ably with this struggle between the
working people and coercive government than Karl Lieb-
knecht, recently elected to the Reichstag from the Kaiser's
own district of Potsdam, who spent a year as a political

404 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

prisoner in Germany for his "Militarismus und Anti-Militaris-
mus." Liebknecht opens his pamphlet by quoting a state-
ment of Bismarck to Professor Dr. Otto Kamaell, in October,
1892 : —

"In Rome water and fire were forbidden to him who put himself
outside of the legal order. In the middle ages that was called to out-
law. It was necessary to treat the Social-Democracy in the same
way, to take away its political rights and its right to vote. So far
I have gone. The Social-Democratic question is a military question.
The Social-Democracy is being handled now in an extraordinarily
superficial way. The Social-Democracy is striving now — and with
success — to win the noncommissioned officers. In Hamburg
already a good part of the troops consist of Social-Democrats, since
the people there have the right to enter exclusively into their own
battalion. What now if these troops should refuse to shoot their
fathers and brothers as the Kaiser has demanded ? Shall we send
the regiments of Hanover and Mecklenburg against Hamburg?
Then we have something there like the Commune in Paris. The
Kaiser was frightened. He said to me he wouldn't exactly care
about being called a cardboard prince like his grandfather, nor at
the very beginning of his reign to wade up to the knees in blood.
Then I said to him, 'Your Majesty will have to go deeper if you give
way now.'"

Here we have it from the lips of Bismarck that the Social-
Democratic question was already a military question in his
time, and his view is supported by the present Kaiser. This is
high authority. Similar views and threats have been com-
mon among the statesmen of our time in nearly every coun-
try.

As early as 1903 the government of Holland broke a large
general strike by the use of the army to operate the railroads,
and the same thing was done in Hungary in the following
year. Indeed, these measures had such a great success that
the Hungarian government went farther two years later,
and took away the right of organization from the agricultural
laborers ; while at the same time it used the army as strike
breakers in harvest time and made permanent arrangements
for doing this in a similar contingency in the future. In
the matter of breaking railway strikes by soldiers, Bulgaria
and other countries are following Holland and Hungary.
The latest and most extraordinary example is undoubtedly
the use of soldiers by the "Socialist" Briand to break the
recent railroad strike in democratic France. (3)

Even peaceful countries like Belgium and Switzerland,

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 405

Great Britain, and the United States, are developing and
changing their military systems so rapidly as to make it
almost certain that they would take similar measures if
occasion should arise.

The agitation for universal conscription in England may
succeed before many years, and the plans for reorganizing
the militia in the United States will also make of it a force
that can be far more useful in breaking strikes than the pres-
ent one, and more ready to be used in case of a nation-wide
strike crisis. Indeed, the Dick military law made every
possible provision for the use of the military in internal
disturbances, up to the point of enlisting every citizen and
making a dictator of the President.

Similar tendencies exist on the Continent of Europe.
Formerly the militia of Switzerland was quite democratically
organized, and each man kept his gun and ammunition at
home, but the government is gradually doing away with
this system and modeling the army every year more closely
on that of the larger and less democratic European powers.
In Belgium a similar movement can be seen in the creation
of a Citizens' Guard, entirely for use at home and especially
against strikers. (3)

Here, then, is a situation to which every Socialist is forced
to give constant thought, no matter how peace-loving and
law-abiding he may be. What is there in modern systems
of government to prevent these large military forces already
employed so successfully for the ominous function of strike
breaking, from being used for other reactionary and tyran-
nical purposes — for putting an end to democratic government,
. when it is attempted to apply it to property and industry ?
So everywhere Socialists and labor unions are giving special
attention to agitation against militarism. Years ago even
the most conservative unions began forbidding their members
to join the militia, and the practice has become general,
while the Boy Scout movement is everywhere denounced
and repudiated. Not only is every effort being made by the
Socialists, in connection with other democratic elements,
to cut off the financial supplies for the army and navy, but
they also sought to inspire all the youth, and particularly
the children of the workers, with a spirit of revolt against
armies, war, and aggressive patriotism, as well as the spirit
of servile obedience, the ignorance, and the brutality that
invariably accompany them.

406 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

For a number of years the fight against militarism, and
incidentally against possible wars, has occupied the chief
attention of international Socialist congresses. While the
Stuttgart Congress (1907) did not accept the proposal of
the French delegates that in case of war an international
strike and insurrection should be declared, the closing part
of the resolution adopted was definitely intended to suggest
such action by rehearsing with approval the various cases
where the working people had already made steps in that
direction, and by advising still more revolutionary action in
the future, as indicated in the words italicized.

"The International," it said, "is unable to prescribe one set mode
of action to the working classes ; this must of necessity be different
in different lands, varying with time and place. But it is clearly its
duty to encourage the working classes everywhere in their opposition
to militarism. As a matter of fact, since the last International
Congress, the working classes have adopted various ways of fighting
militarism, by refusing grants for military and naval armaments, and
by striving to organize armies on democratic lines. They have been
successful in preventing outbreaks of war, or in putting an end to
existing war, or the rumor of war. We may mention the agree-
ment entered into between the English and French trade-unions
after the Fashoda incident, for the purpose of maintaining peace
and for reestablishing friendly relations between England and
France ; the policy of the Social-Democratic parties in the French
and German Parliaments during the Morocco crisis, and the peace-
ful declarations which the Socialists in both countries sent each
other; the common action of the Austrian and Italian Socialists,
gathered at Trieste, with a view to avoiding a conflict between the
two powers ; the great efforts made by the Socialists of Sweden to
prevent an attack on Norway ; and lastly, the heroic sacrifices made
by the Socialist workers and peasants of Russia and Poland in the
struggle against the war demon let loose by the Czar, in their efforts
to put an end to their ravages, and at the same time to utilize the crisis
for the liberation of the country and its workers.

"All efforts bear testimony to the growing power of the proletariat
and to its absolute determination to do all it can in order to obtain
peace. The action of the working classes in this direction will be
even more successful when public opinion is influenced to a greater
degree than at present, and when the working-men's parties in different
lands are directed and instructed by the International." And finally
it was decided to try to take advantage of the profound disturbances
caused by every war to hasten the abolition of capitalist rule.

The International Congress of 1910 referred back to the
Socialist parties of the various countries for further considera-

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 407

tion a resolution proposed by the French and English dele-
gates which declared : "Among the means to be used in order
to prevent and hinder war, the Congress considers as particu-
larly efficacious the general strike, especially in the industries
that supply war with its implements (arms and ammunition,
transport, etc.), as well as propaganda and popular action
in their active forms."

This resolution is now under discussion. In referring it
to the national parties, the International Socialist Bureau
reminded them that the practical measure the authors of
the amendment had principally in view was "the strike of
workingmen who were employed in delivering war material."
The Germans opposed the resolution on the ground that a
strike of this kind, guarded against by the government,
would have to become general, and that during the martial
law of war times it would necessarily mean tremendous vio-
lence. They contended that a more effective means of pre-
venting war, until the Socialists are stronger, is to vote down
all taxes and appropriations for armies and navies. And
they accused the British Labourites who supported this reso-
lution of having failed to vote against war supplies, while the
Germans and their supporters had. This accusation was true,
as against the British Labourites, but did not apply against
the French and other Socialists who were for the resolution.

We can obtain a key to this situation only by examining
the varying motives of reformists and revolutionaries. The
French reformists, followers of Jaures, are so anxious for
peace, that, notwithstanding the fact that many capitalists,
probably a majority, now also favor it, they are ready to have
the working people -make the most terrible sacrifices for this
semi-capitalistic purpose. (See Part II, Chapter V.) The
Germans realize that the capitalists themselves have more
and more reasons for avoiding wars, and, being satisfied with
their present political prospects, do not propose to risk
them — or their necks — for any such object. The French
revolutionaries, on the other hand, favor extreme measures,
not to preserve a capitalistic peace, but to develop the gen-
eral strike, to paralyze armies, and encourage their demoraliza-
tion and dissolution. They want to parallel all plans for
mobilization by plans for insurrection, and to force armies to
disclose their true purpose, which they believe is not war
at all, but the arbitrary and violent suppression of popular
movements.

408 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Whether capitalism or Socialism puts an end to war,
Socialists generally are agreed their success may ultimately
depend on their ability to find some way to put a check to
militarism. The chief means by which this is likely to be
accomplished, they believe, is by the spread of Socialism and
the education of youth and even of children in the principles
of international working-class solidarity, always to put the
humanity as a whole above one's country, always to despise
and revolt against all kinds of government by violence.
Karl Liebknecht remarks that "it is already recognized that
every Social-Democrat educates his children to be Social-
Democrats." But he says that this is not sufficient. Social-
Democratic parents do their best, but the Socialist public
must aid them to do better. In other words, the greatest
hope for Socialism, in its campaign against militarism as
in all else it undertakes, lies in education.

The Socialist movement, even if it becomes some day
capable of forcing concessions from the capitalists through
their fear of a social overturn, depends first, last, and always
upon its ability to teach and to train and to organize the
masses of the people to solve their own problems without
governmental or capitalistic aid, and to understand that, in
order to solve them successfully, they must be able to take
broad and far-sighted views of all the political and economic
problems of the time.

Especially Socialists undertake to enlighten the masses
on the part played by war in history and in recent times —
not because wars are necessarily impending, but because the
war talk is an excuse for armies that really serve another
purpose. For Socialists believe that the rule of society by
economic classes, and rule by war or brute force, in the
Socialist view, are one and the same thing. No Socialist
has expressed this view more clearly or forcefully than Mr.
George R. Kirkpatrick, in his recent book, "War — What
For?" Addressed to the heart as well as to the head, and
based upon all the most important of the previous attacks
on militarism war, whether Socialist or not, it may be doubted
whether any non-Socialist could have presented as power-
ful an argument. Mr. Kirkpatrick gives the following
interesting outline of the typical Socialist view of the
development of primitive warfare into modern militarism
and of slavery into the present industrial system (here
abbreviated) : —

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 409

"For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the practice to
take no prisoners (except the younger women), but to kill, kill, kill,
because the conquerors had no use for the captive men. When,
however, society had developed industrially to a stage enabling the
victors to make use of live men as work animals, that new industrial
condition produced a new idea — one of the greatest and most revo-
lutionary ideas that ever flashed into the human brain; and that
idea was simply this : A live man is worth more than a dead one,
if you can make use of him as a work animal. When industrially
it became practicable for the conquerors to make use of live men
captured in war, it rapidly became the custom to take prisoners, save
them alive, beat them into submission — tame them — and thus
have them for work animals, human work animals.

" Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world, started
through the centuries, centuries wet with tears and red with blood
and fire.

" Thus originated a class of workers, the working class.

" Thus also originated the ruling class. Thus originated the 'lead-
ing citizens.'

" Thus originally, in war, the workers fell into the bottomless gulf
of misery. It was thus that war opened wide the devouring jaws
of hell for the workers.

" Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial classes
— into two industrial classes.

" Of course the interests of these two classes were in fundamental
conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.

" Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and control
of all the powers of government — and of course they had sense
enough to use the powers of government to defend their own class interests.

"Of course the ruling class made all the laws and controlled all
institutions in the interests of the ruling class — naturally." (5)

With all other international and revolutionary Socialists,
Mr. Kirkpatrick believes that when the masses are edu-
cated to see the truth of this view and have learned the
true nature of modern industry, class government, and
armies, they will put an end to them. He concludes : —

"The working class men inside and outside the army are confused.

"They do not understand.

"But they will understand.

"AND WHEN THEY DO UNDERSTAND, their class loyalty and class
pride will astonish the world. They will stand erect in their vast
class strength and defend — THEMSELVES. They will cease to coax
and tease ; they will make demands — unitedly. They will desert
the armory ; they will spike every cannon on earth ; they will scorn
the commander ; they will never club nor bayonet another striker ;

410 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

and in the legislatures of the world they will shear the fatted para-
sites from the political and industrial body of society." (6)

Here we have both the Socialist point of view and a glimpse
of the passionate feeling that accompanies it. "War —
What For?" has been circulated by scores of thousands
among the working people and in the army and navy.

In countries like America and England, where there is no
compulsory service, the practical objective of such agitation
is to prevent enlistment. In France, Belgium, and Italy,
where there is compulsory service, the Socialists for years
have been preaching openly desertion and insubordination.

Complaint against this anti-military propaganda is gen-
eral in United States army and navy circles. Recently a
general in Southern California was said by the press to have
reported to Washington that the distribution of one circular
had dissuaded many men from joining the army. The cir-
cular, which was published, was attributed, whether rightly
or not we do not know, to Jack London. It ran in part : —

"Young men, the lowest aim in your life is to be a soldier. The
good soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never
thinks ; he never reasons ; he only obeys. If he is ordered to fire on
his fellow citizens, on his friends, on his neighbors, on his relatives,
he obeys without hesitation. If he is ordered to fire down a crowded
street when the poor are clamoring for bread, he obeys, and sees the
gray hair of age stained with blood and the life tide gushing from
the breast of women, feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he is
ordered off as one of a firing squad to execute a hero or benefactor,
he fires without hesitation, though he knows that the bullet will
pierce the noblest heart that ever beat in a human breast.

"A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine.
He is not a man. He is not even a brute, for brutes only kill in self-
defense. All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that
constitutes the man, has been sworn away when he took the enlist-
ment roll. His mind, conscience, aye, his very soul, is in the keeping
of his officer."

This language will appeal to many as extremely violent,
yet it is no stronger than that of Tolstoi, while Bernard
Shaw used almost identical expressions in his Preface to
"John Bull's Other Island," without anybody suggesting
that they were treasonable.

"The soldier," said Shaw, "is an anachronism of which we must
get rid. Among people who are proof against the suggestions of
romantic fiction there can no longer be any question of the fact that

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 411

military service produces moral imbecility, ferocity, and cowardice.
. . . For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; such
efficiency as he has is the result of dehumanization and disablement.
His whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest
of lives ; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is politically
and socially a child, with rations instead of rights, treated like a
child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed
like a child, excused for outbreaks like a child, forbidden to marry
like a child, and called Tommy like a child. He has no real work to
keep him from going mad except housemaid's work."

Mr. Shaw's words are identical with those that are preached
by Socialists every day, especially on the Continent.

"No soldier is asked to think for himself," he says, "to judge for
himself, to consult his own honor and manhood, to dread any con-
sequence except the consequence of punishment to his own person.
The rules are plain and simple ; the ceremonies of respect and sub-
mission are as easy and mechanical as a prayer wheel, the orders
are always to be obeyed thoughtlessly, however inept or dishonorable
they may be. . . . No doubt this weakness is just what the military
system aims at, its ideal soldier being, not a complete man, but a
docile unit or cannon fodder which can be trusted to respond
promptly and certainly to the external stimulus of a shouted order,
and is intimidated to the pitch of being afraid to run away from
a battle."

Nor is Mr. Shaw less sparing to the officer, and he repre-
sents in this case also the most unanimous Socialist view : —

"If he [the officer] calls his men dogs," says Shaw, "and perverts
a musketry drill order to make them kneel to him as an act of per-
sonal humiliation, and thereby provokes a mutiny among men not
yet thoroughly broken in to the abjectness of the military condition,
he is not, as might be expected, shot, but, at the worst, reprimanded,
whilst the leader of the mutiny, instead of getting the Victoria Cross
and a public testimonial, is condemned to five years' penal servitude
by Lynch Law (technically called martial law) administered by a
trade union of officers."

Like all Socialists, Mr. Shaw recognizes that the evils of
militarism rest even more heavily on subject peoples than
on the soldiers, citizens, or taxpayers of the dominating
races. He says of the officer he has been describing, who is
humane and intelligent in civil life, that in his military capac-
ity he will frantically declare that " he dare not walk about in

412 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

a foreign country unless every crime of violence against an
Englishman in uniform is punished by the bombardment
and destruction of a whole village, or the wholesale flogging
and execution of every native in the neighborhood ; and also
that unless he and his fellow officers 'have power, without
the intervention of a jury, to punish the slightest self-asser-
tion or hesitation to obey orders, however grossly insulting
or disastrous those orders may be, with sentences which are
reserved in civil life for the worst crimes, he cannot secure
the obedience and respect of his men, and the country would
accordingly lose all of its colonies and dependencies, and be
helplessly conquered in the German invasion which he confi-
dently expects to occur in the course of a fortnight or so."

"That is to say," Mr. Shaw continues, "in so far as he is an
ordinary gentleman he behaves sensibly and courageously ; and in so
far as he is a military man he gives way without shame to the grossest
folly, cruelty, and poltroonery. If any other profession in the world
had been stained by those vices and by false witness, forgery, swin-
dling, torture, compulsion of men's families to attend their executions,
digging up and mutilation of dead enemies, all of which is only added
to the devastation proper to its own business, as the military profession
has been within recent memory in England, France, and the United
States of America (to mention no other countries), it would be very
difficult to induce men of capacity and character to enter it. And in
England, it is, in fact, largely dependent for its recruits on the refuse
of industrial life, and for its officers on the aristocratic and plutocratic
refuse of political and diplomatic life, who join the army and pay
for their positions in the more or less fashionable clubs which the
regimental messes provide them with — clubs, which, by the way,
occasionally figure in ragging scandals as circles of extremely coarse
moral character." (6)

It is not surprising that those who view armies in this light
preach desertion and insubordination. A recent cable dis-
patch sums up some of the results of the activity in this
direction of the French Federation of Labor with its million
members, and of the Socialist Party with its still larger
following : —

"Last year there were 13,500 desertions and 53,000 who refused
to answer their call to military service. Loss to France in 1910, two
army corps. These figures are given by La France Militaire, a
soldiers' newspaper. In a fund called 'le sou du soldat et des in-
soumis,' the idea was to develop antimilitarism and antipatriotism.

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 413

Five per cent, on the subscriptions of the workmen, belonging to the
labor unions, was ordered to be set apart for this fund. The con-
scripts before departing were requested to leave the name of their
regiment and their number so that sums of money might be sent to.
them for antimilitary propaganda in the barracks. For eight years
that sort of thing has been going on, but things never reached to the
extent they do now.

"The comrades of the workshop count on them to spread among
those around ideas of revolt and rebellion/ is an extract from a letter
read by M. Georges Berry in Parliament, and he added that he had
a score of such letters emanating from the unions. In M. Jaures's
organ, L Humanite, there appeared an article on December 22, 1910,
inviting all the conscripts of the Labor Federation to send in their
names so that financial aid might be sent to help them in organizing
'insubordination and desertion.'"

When the Caillaux Ministry came into power in 1911, a
large number of the most prominent leaders of the Federa-
tion of Labor were arrested for participation in this agitation.
But for every arrest many other unionists signed declarations
favoring identical principles, and as the whole Federation
is wedded to this propaganda, it is more than doubtful if the
whole million can be arrested and the propaganda done away
with.

This agitation is not directed primarily against possible
war, or even exclusively against compulsory military service.
Just as the preparations for an insurrectionary general strike
in case of war tend to break down the power and prestige
of the army, even if war is never declared, so the teaching
of insubordination and desertion have the same effect, even
if the compulsory armies are replaced by a compulsory militia,
having only a few weeks of drill every year, as in Australia,
or by a voluntary militia, as in this country. The Socialist
world accepts the word of the American Socialists that a
militia, if less burdensome, and less obnoxious in many ways
than a standing army, may be just as thoroughly reactionary,
and quite as hostile to the working class. The French So-
cialists and unionists encourage all general and organized
movements among common soldiers. And their ideal in
this regard is reached when a whole body of soldiers, for
any good cause, revolts — especially at a time of popular
demonstrations. During the wine troubles in the south of
France, a whole regiment refused to march — and for years
afterwards was toasted at Socialist gatherings.

414 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

"Military strikes" have also been frequent in Russia as
well as in France — and have received the unanimous
approval of the Socialists of all countries. No matter how
small the causes, Socialists usually justify them, because they
consider military discipline in itself wholly an evil — and the
worst tyranny of capitalist government. They promote
military revolts in favor of great popular causes for a double
reason, and they also have a double motive for supporting
purely military revolts against militarism. For if Socialists
are engaged in a class war, which practically all of them
believe may, and many believe must, lead to revolution, it is
as necessary to disarm the opposing classes as it is to abolish
military discipline because of its inherent evil. It is this
fact that explains the importance of all Socialist efforts
against imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, patriotism,
war and armies — and not the idea, common among Social-
ists, that Socialism alone can be relied on to establish per-
manent international peace.

Moreover, the most successful attacks on existing govern-
ments in their coercive and arbitrary aspects, as the Stutt-
gart resolution suggests (see above), have been when there
were threats of an unpopular war. The Socialist attack is
then not only leveled against war, but also against armies.
A good example is the sending of a delegation of working-
men to Berlin by the French federation at the invitation of
that of Germany at the time of the Morocco affair (July,
1911). There the Secretary of the associated labor councils
of France, Yvetot, made a speech, the importance of which
was fully appreciated by the German government, which
ordered him to be immediately expelled. His remarks were
also appreciated by his German Socialist audience which
responded to them by stormy applause lasting several min-
utes. The sentiments so widely appreciated were contained
in the following remarks addressed to the French and Ger-
man governments : —

"Just try once, you blockheads, to stir up one people against the
other, to arm one people against the other, you will see if the peoples
won't make an entirely different use of the weapons you put into
their hands. Wait and see if the people don't go to war against an
entirely different enemy than you expect."

The significance of this declaration was not that it declared
war against war, but that, under a certain highly probable

DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 415

contingency of the immediate future, it prepared the minds
of the people for the forceful overthrow of capitalist gov-
ernments.

To the preparations of capitalist governments to revert
to military rule in the case of a successful nation-wide gen-
eral strike, the Socialists reply at present by plans for weaken-
ing and disintegrating armies. And they do not hesitate
to say that they will use more active measures if capitalist
governments persist in what seems to be their present
determination to resort to some form of military despotism
when the Socialists have won over a majority of the popula-
tion to their views.

CHAPTER VIII

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

"THE legal constitution of every period," says Rosa Lux-
emburg, "is solely a product of revolution. While revolu-
tion is the political act of creation of class history, legislation
is the continued political growth of society. The work of
legal reform has in itself no independent driving force out-
side of the revolution ; it moves during each period of history
only along that line and for that period of time for which the
impetus given to it during the last revolution continues, or,
to speak concretely, it moves only in the frame of that
form of society which was brought into the world through
the last overturn. . . . Therefore, the person who speaks
for the method of legal reform instead of the conquest of political
power and the overthrow of [present day] society is not as a
matter of fact seeking, in a quieter, safer, and slower way, the
same goal, but a different goal altogether; namely, instead of
bringing about a new social order, merely the accomplishing
of unessential changes in the old one." (1)

It is not that Rosa Luxemburg or any other prominent
Socialist underestimates the importance to the Socialist
movement of universal suffrage, and of the utli/ation of our
more or less democratic governments for the purpose of
reform. She realizes that such democracy as we have to-
day is useful to-day, and that in a future crisis it may serve
as a lever for overturning the present social order. "Democ-
racy is indispensable," she says, "not because it makes the
conquest of political power by the working class superfluous,
but, on the contrary, because it makes this seizure of power
not only necessary, but the only remaining alternative."

From Kautsky and Bebel, who have always been known
as strong believers in the possibilities of political action, to
the somewhat skeptical revolutionary Socialists of France,
the ballot has thus far remained the weapon of first practical
importance, even for revolutionary purposes. Bebel expects
some day a great crisis which will go far beyond the power

416

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 417

of any merely political means to solve. Kautsky looks for-
ward to more than one great conflict, in which other means
will have to be employed, as does also his Socialist critic
and opponent, Jaures. But for the present all these men are
occupying themselves with politics.

Even those Socialists who are most skeptical of the revo-
lutionary possibilities of political action by no means turn
their back upon it. The French advocate of economic
action and revolutionary labor unionism, Lagardelle, who
recently surprised some of his French comrades, as I have
already pointed out, by running as a candidate for the French
Chamber, claimed that he did this in entire consistency with
his principles. And even the arch-revolutionary, Gustave
Henre", has declared that in spite of all the faults and limi-
tations of political action, revolutionary Socialists must cling
to the Socialist Party. Herv6 had looked with a favorable
eye on the formation of a revolutionary organization which
was to consist only in part of Socialists and in part of revo-
lutionary labor unionists, but he declared at the last moment
that such an organization ought to be only a group within
the Socialist Party. A bitter critic of Jaures and also of the
orthodox "center" of the party on the ground that their,
methods are too timid to achieve anything for Socialism in
view of the ruthless aggressions of the capitalists, Herv6
nevertheless said that it was only very exceptional circum-
stances that could justify revolutionary Socialists acting
against the party organization, even though it seemed to
be doing so little effective fighting against the capitalist
enemy.

There could be no stronger evidence of the powerful hold
of political action even on the most revolutionary Socialists
than the summary in which Herv6 reviews his reasons for
this conclusion : —

" First : That the only manner of agitating for anti-parliamentar-
ism that succeeds, and is without danger, is before and after electoral
periods — showing constantly to the elite of the proletariat the in-
sufficiency and dangers of parliamentarism in general and parlia-
mentarist Socialism in particular;

' ' Second : During electoral periods all propaganda disparaging the
possibilities of politics unaided by other forms of action should
cease, 'in order not to embroil ourselves with the Socialist masses
who must be handled carefully at any cost, in the interest of the
revolutionary cause ' ;

2E

418 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

" Third: While the revolutionary Socialists' discontent with the
party's moderation and exclusive absorption in the details of politics
or reform ought not to lead them to oppose the organization during
election periods, it does not follow that revolutionary Socialists can
not even at such times continue to preach their principles and pro-
claim their hatred to the conservative parties and their attitude to-
wards the Parliamentary Socialist Party 'of sympathy mixed with
distrust';

" Fourth: An exception should be made against certain Socialist
candidates who may have taken a scandalously conservative anti-
labor and anti-revolutionary position in the legislative session just
gone by, and that against the latter there should be a fight to the
finish, certain as we are of having with us almost the entire support
of the parliamentary Socialist Party." (2)

In a word, Herve* proves his democracy by respecting the
opinion of the majority of the Socialist Party, because he
hopes and believes that it will become revolutionary in his
sense of the word. With a strong preference for "direct
action," strikes, "sabotage," boycotts, etc., he yet allows his
policies to be guided very largely by a political organization.

But Socialist politics are not politics at all in the ordinary
sense of the word. They are directed primarily to prepare
the people for a great struggle to come. "Situations are
approaching," said Bebel at the Congress at Jena, in 1905,
"which must of physical necessity lead to catastrophes unless
the working class develop so rapidly in power, numbers,
culture, and insight, that the bourgeoisie lose the desire for
catastrophes. We are not seeking a catastrophe, — what
use would it be to us ? Catastrophes are brought about by
the ruling classes." Bebel was referring particularly to the
possibility and even the probability that the German gov-
ernment might try to destroy the Socialist Party by limiting
the right of suffrage or to crush the unions by limiting the
right of labor to organize. If he predicted a revolutionary
crisis, it was to come from a life-and-death struggle of the
working people in self-defense, in a desperate effort to pro-
tect economic and political rights, but especially political
rights, which, as the labor unionist, von Elm, said at this
congress, were "the key to all." A revolutionary conflict
was anticipated, to be fought out by economic means, but
only as part of a political crisis — in which the majority of
the people would be on the side of the Socialists and the labor
unions. Similarly, in America, Mr. Victor Berger stated

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 419

at the Socialist Convention of 1908 that he had no doubt that
"in order to be able to shoot even, some day, we must have
the powers of the political government in our hands, at least
to a great extent."

While neither the political revolution involved in the cap-
ture of government by Socialist voters, nor the economic
revolution that would follow a wholly successful general
strike would lead necessarily to revolution in its narrow sense
of a great but relatively brief crisis, or to revolutionary vio-
lence; while either political or economic overturn, or both,
combined in a single movement, might be accomplished peace-
fully and by degrees, capitalist governments are just as
likely to seize the one as the other, as the occasion for attempts
at violent repression. A complete political victory would
thus lead to the same crisis and violence as a victorious gen-
eral strike.

As Bebel says, Socialists are not trying to create a revolu-
tionary crisis. But they have little doubt that the capital-
ists themselves will precipitate one as soon as Socialism
becomes truly menacing, as may happen within a few years
in some countries. "The politicians of the ruling class have
reached a condition where they are ready to risk everything
upon a single throw of the dice," says Kautsky, on the suppo-
sition that Socialism is already a real menace in Germany.
"They would rather take their chances in a civil war than
endure the fear of a revolution," he continues. "The
Socialists on the other hand, not only have no reason to
follow suit in this policy of desperation, but should rather
seek by every means in their power to postpone any such
insane uprising [of the capitalists] even if it be recognized
as inevitable, to a time when the proletariat will be so power-
ful as to be able at once to whip the enraged [capitalist]
mob, and to restrain it, so that the one paroxysm shall be its
last, and the destruction that it brings and the sacrifice it
costs shall be as small as possible." (3)

The majority of Socialists have no inclination towards
violence of any kind at the present time, whether domestic
or foreign, and will avoid it also for all time if they can. But
they fear and expect that the present ruling class will under-
take violent measures of repression which will inevitably
result in a conflict of physical force.

The Civic Federation, of which so many conspicuous
Americans have been members (including Grover Cleveland,

420 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

Andrew Carnegie, August Belmont, Seth Low, Nicholas
Murray Butler, and other prominent philanthropists, edu-
cators, statesmen, publicists, and multimillionaires), had its
earliest origin, to the author's personal knowledge, partly
in an effort to divert the energies of the working people from
Socialism and revolutionary unionism to the conservative
trade unionism of the older British type. It was natural
that this organization should give more and more of its
attention to an organized warfare against the Socialist move-
ment as the latter continued to grow, and this it has done.
Its members have attacked the movement from every quarter,
accusing it of a tendency to undermine religion, the family,
and true patriotism. But the most direct and important
accusation it has made has been that the Socialists are work-
ing toward revolutionary violence. In its official organ it
has quoted Mr. Debs as saying: "When the revolution
comes we will be prepared to take possession and assume
control of every industry." The quotation is fairly chosen,
and represents the Socialist standpoint, but if it is to be
thoroughly understood it must be taken in connection with
other positions taken by the party. No revolution is con-
templated, other than one of the overwhelming majority
of the people, nor is any violence expected, other than such
that may be instigated by a privileged minority in order to
prevent the majority from gaining control of the government
and industries of the country.

That the Civic Federation writers also understand that
the violence may come from above rather than from below
is clearly shown in the context of the article in question.
The Federation organ also attacks Mrs. J. G. Phelps Stokes
for having said, at Barnard College, that the present govern-
ment would probably be overturned by the ballot. In answer
to this, the Federation's organ said, "Mrs. Stokes is a woman
of intelligence and doubtless knows that States are not over-
turned by ballots." Here is a categorical denial on the part
of an organ representing the most powerful privileged ele-
ment in the country, of the possibility of peaceful political
revolution, which can only mean that if a majority desires
such a peaceful revolutionary change, the minority now in
power will use violence to prevent it. An article by one of
the Federation's officials, Ada C. Sweet, in the same number,
makes still further disclosures. Among the "fantastic proj-
ects and schemes of Socialism," she says, are the demand

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 421

"that the Constitution be made amendable by a majority
vote," and the demand for the abolition of that feature of
pur government "which makes the Supreme Court the final
interpreter and guardian of the federal Constitution."
These demands, of course, are becoming common outside of
the Socialist Party, and would simply move the United States
up to the semi-democratic level of constitutions made during
the last half century. Indeed, the judicial precedents that
have created an oligarchy of judges in this country, though
they have existed for a century, have never been imitated
by any country on earth, civilized or uncivilized, with the
single exception of Australia. It is these demands, which
would not be held even as radical in other countries, which
Miss Sweet says cannot be accomplished without violence. If
this is so, it means that violence will come from above, and
the Socialists would be cowards indeed if they were not
ready to resist it.

Miss Sweet contends that "to bring about the first prac-
tical experiments" demanded by Socialism "would start
such a civil war as the world has never yet seen in all its long
history." (4) No doubt the writer, who has held a respon-
sible position with the Civic Federation for years, represents
the opinions of her associates. Her prediction may be correct,
and if so it would indicate that the people who at present
control this country and its government, and who have the
power to initiate such a civil war, are determined to do so.

While Socialists have no desire for revolutionary vio-
lence, being convinced, as they are, that the present generation
will see the majority of the voters of every modern country
in their ranks, and Socialists by right in possession of the
legal powers of government, they nevertheless have never
been blind to the readiness of the plutocratic and militaristic
forces in control of governments to proceed to illegal coups
d'etat, to destroy all vestiges of democracy, if thought neces-
sary, and to use every form of violence, as soon as they feel
that they are beginning to lose their political power. The
evidence that this is already the intention is abundant.

There is no one who has recognized more clearly than the
recent "Socialistic" Prime Minister of France (Briand)
that the ruling classes force the people to fight for every
great advance. In the French Socialist Congress of Paris,
in 1899, Briand said: "Now I must reply to those of my
friends who through an instinctive horror of every kind of

422 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

violence have been brought to hope that the transformation
of society can be the work of evolution alone. . . . Such
certainly are beautiful dreams, but they are only dreams.
... In a general way, in every instance, history demon-
strates that the people have scarcely obtained anything
except what they have been able to take for themselves. . . .
It is not through a fad, and much less through the love of
violence, that our party is and must remain revolutionary,
but by necessity, one might say by destiny. ... In our
Congress we have even pointed out forms of revolt, among
the first of which are the general strike." In the Interna-
tional Congress at Paris in 1900, Briand again advocated
the general strike on the ground that it was "necessary as a
pressure on capitalistic society, indispensable for obtaining
continued ameliorations of a political and economic kind,
and also, under propitious circumstances, for the purposes
of social revolution." Nor can there be any doubt as to the
revolutionary meaning of Briand when he advocated the
general strike. In 1899 he had said, "One can discuss a strike
of soldiers, one can even try to make ready for it ... our
young military Socialists busy themselves in making the
workingman who is going to quit his shop, and the peasant
who is going to desert his fields to go into the barracks,
understand that there are duties higher than those discipline
would like to impose upon them." I have already quoted
his recommendation, made on this occasion, that in the case
of a social crisis the soldiers might fire, but need not necessarily
fire in the direction suggested by the officers. As late as
1903 he took up the defense of Gustave Herv6, when the
latter was accused of anti-militarism, and said before the
court: "I am glad to declare that I am not led here by a
chance client, I am not here to-day as an advocate pleading
for his clients. I am here in a complete and full community
of ideas with friends, for whom it is less important that I
should defend their liberty, than that I should explain and
justify their thought and their writings."

There can be no question that the opinions expressed by
Briand at this time are approximately those of the majority
of the European Socialists to-day. Some of the leading
spokesmen of the Socialists are no doubt somewhat more
cautious of the form of their statements. But the modifi-
cations they would make in Briand's statement would be
due, not to any objection in principle, but to expediency and

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 423

the practical limitations of such measures as he advocates
in each given case.

The great majority of Socialists feel that a premature
revolutionary crisis at the present moment would endanger
or postpone the success of a political revolution, peaceful or
otherwise, when the time for it is ripe. The position of
Kautsky will show how very cautious the most influential
are. The movement has become so strong in Germany that it
might be supposed that the German Socialists would no longer
fear a test of strength. But this is not the case. They feel,
on the contrary that every delay is in their favor, as they are
making colossal strides in then* organization and propaganda,
while the political situation is becoming more and more
critical.

"Our recruiting ground," says Kautsky, "to-day includes fully
three fourths of the population, probably even more ; the number
of votes that are given to us do not equal one third of all the voters
and not one fourth of all those entitled to vote. But the rate of
progress increases with a leap when the revolutionary spirit is abroad.
It is almost inconceivable with what rapidity the mass of the people
reach a clear consciousness of their class interests at such a time.
Not alone their courage and their belligerency, but their political
interest as well, is spurred on in the highest degree through the con-
sciousness that the hour has at last come for them to burst out of
the darkness of night into the glory of the full glare of the sun. Even
the laziest become industrious, even the most cowardly become
brave, and even the most narrow gains a wider view. In such times
a single year will accomplish an education of the masses that would
otherwise have required a generation." (5)

Kautsky's conception of the probable struggle of the future
shows that, together with the millions of Socialists he repre-
sents, he expects the great crisis to develop gradually put
of the present-day struggle. He does not expect a precipi-
tate and comparatively brief struggle like the French Revo-
lution, but rather "long-drawn-out civil wars, if one does not
necessarily give to these words the idea of actual slaughter
and battles."

"We are revolutionists," Kautsky concludes, "and this is
not in the sense that a steam engine is a revolutionist. The
social transformation for which we are striving can be attained
only through a political revolution, by means of the conquest
of political power by the fighting proletariat. The only

424 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

form of the State in which Socialism can be realized is that of
a republic, and a thoroughly democratic republic at that.

"The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party, but not a
revolution-making party. We know that our goal can be
obtained only through a revolution. We also know that it
is just as little in our power to create this revolution as it is
in the power of our opponents to prevent it." (6)

The influential French Socialist, Guesde, agrees with
Kautsky that a peaceful solution is highly improbable, and
that the revolution must be one of an overwhelming majority
of the people, not artificially created, but brought about by
the ruling classes themselves.

Of course a peaceful revolution might be accomplished
gradually and by the most orderly means. If, however,
these peaceful and legal means are later made illegal, or
widely interfered with, if the ballot is qualified or political
democracy otherwise thwarted, or if the peaceful acts of
labor organizations, with the extension of government own-
ership, are looked upon as mutiny or treason, — then un-
doubtedly the working people will regard as enemies those
who attempt to legalize such reaction, and will employ all
available means to overthrow a "government" of such a kind.

From Marx and Bebel none of the most prominent spokes-
men of the international movement have doubted that the
capitalists would use such violent and extreme measures
as to create a world-wide counter-revolution, and began to
make their preparations accordingly. This is why, half a
century ago, they passed beyond mere "revolutionary talk,"
to "revolutionary action." This practical "revolutionary
evolution," as he called it, was described by Marx (in resign-
ing from a communist society) in 1851 : "We say to the work-
ing people, 'You will have to go through ten, fifteen, fifty
years of civil wars and wars between nations not only to change
existing conditions, but to change yourselves and to make your-
selves worthy of political power.' '• (My italics.)

"Revolutionary evolution" means that Socialists expect,
not a single crisis, but a long-drawn-out series of revolutionary,
political, civil, and industrial conflicts. If we substitute for
the insurrectionary civil wars of Marx's time, i.e. of the periods
of 1848 and 1870, the industrial civil wars to-day, i.e. the more
and more widespread and successful, the more and more
general, strikes that we have been witnessing since 1900, in
countries so widely separated and representative as France,

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 425

England, Sweden, Portugal, and Russia and Argentine Re-
public, Marx's view is that of the overwhelming majority of
Socialists to-day.(0)

The suppression of such widespread strikes will become
especially costly as "State Socialism" brings a larger and
larger proportion of the wage earners under its policy of
" efficiency wages," so that their incomes will be considerably
above the mere subsistence level. A large part of these in-
creased wages can and doubtless will be used against capi-
talism. Socialists believe that strikes will become more and
more extended and protracted, until the capitalists will be
forced, sooner or later, either to repressive violence, or to
begin to make vital economic or political concessions that
will finally insure their unconditional surrender.

Already many non-Socialist observers have firmly grasped
the meaning of revolutionary Socialism. As a distinguished
American editor recently remarked, "Universal suffrage and
universal education mean universal revolution; it may be — •
pray God it be not — a revolution of brutality and crime." (7)
The ruling minority have put down revolutions in the past
by "brutality and crime" under the name of martial "law."
Socialists have new evidences every day that similar measures
will be used against them in the future, from the moment their
power becomes formidable.

(°) A leading article of the official weekly of the German Socialist Party
on the eve of the elections of 1912 gives the strongest possible evidence that
the German Socialists regard the ballot primarily as a means to revolution.
The article is written by Franz Mehring, the historian of the German move-
ment, and its leading argument is to be found in the following paragraphs : —

"The more votes the Social-Democracy obtains in these elections, the
more difficult it will be for the Reaction to carry out exceptional laws [refer-
ring to Bismarck's legislation practically outlawing the Socialists], and the
more this miserable weapon will become for them a two-edged sword. Cer-
tainly it will come to that [anti-Socialist legislation] in the end, for no one
in possession of his five senses believes that, when universal suffrage sends a
Social-Democratic majority to the Reichstag, the ruling classes will say with
a polite bow : ' Go ahead, Messrs. Workingmen ; you have won, now please
proceed as you think best.' Sooner or later the possessing classes will begin
a desperate game, and it is as necessary for the working classes to be pre-
pared for this event as it would be madness for them to strengthen the posi-
tion of their enenies by laying down their arms. It can only be to their
advantage to gather more numerous fighting forces under their banner, even
if by this means they hasten the historical process [the day when anti-Social-
ist laws will be passed], and indeed precisely because of this.

"La Salle used to say to his followers in confidential talks : ' When I speak
of universal suffrage you must always understand that I mean revolution."
And the Party has always conceived of universal suffrage as a means of
revolutionary recruiting" (Die Neue Zeit, December 16, 1911).

CHAPTER IX

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

THE Socialist policy requires so complete a reversal of the
policy of collectivist capitalism, that no government has taken
any steps whatever in that direction. No governments and
no political parties, except the Socialists, have any such steps
under discussion, and finally, no governments or capitalist
parties are sufficiently alarmed or confused by the menace
of Socialism to be hurried or driven into a policy which would
carry them a stage nearer to the very thing they are most
anxious to avoid.

If we are moving towards Socialism it is due to entirely
different causes : to the numerical increase, and the improved
education and organization of the non-capitalist classes, to
their training in the Socialist parties and labor unions for the
definite purpose of turning the capitalists (as such) out of
industry and government, to the experience they have gained
in political and economic struggles against overwhelmingly
superior forces, to the fact that the enemy, though he can
prevent them at present from gaining even a partial control
over industry or government, or from seizing any strategic
point of the first importance, is utterly unable to crush them,
notwithstanding his greater and greater efforts to do so, and
cannot prevent them from gaining on him constantly in num-
bers and superiority of organization.

If we are advancing towards Socialism, it is not because the
non-capitalist classes, when compared with the capitalists, are
gradually gaining a greater share of wealth or more power
in society. It is because they are gradually gaining that
capacity for organized political and economic action which,
though useless except for defensive purposes to-day, will
enable them to take possession of industry and government
when their organization has become stronger than that of the
capitalists.

The overwhelming majority of Socialists and labor unionists
are occupied either with purely defensive measures or with

426

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 427

preparations for aggressive action in the future. This does
not mean that no economic or political reforms of benefit
or importance can be expected until the Socialists have con-
quered capitalism or forced it to recognize their power; I
have shown that, on the contrary, a colossal program of such
reforms is either impending or in actual process of execution.
It means only that for every advance allotted to labor, a
greater advance will be gained by the capitalist class which
is promoting these reforms, that their most important effect
is to increase the relative power of the capitalists.

The first governmental step towards Socialism will have
been taken when the Socialist organizations are able to say :
During this administration the position of the non-capitalist
classes has improved faster than that of the capitalists. But even
such a governmental step towards Socialism does not mean
that Socialism is being installed. It may be followed by a
step in the opposite direction. No advance can be permanently
held until the organizations of non-capitalists have become su-
perior to or at least as powerful as those of the capitalists. An
actual step in Socialism, moreover, as distinct from such an
insecure political step towards Socialism, depends in no degree
upon the action of non-Socialist governments (and still less
on local Socialist administrations subject to higher non-
Socialist control) unless such governments are already prac-
tically vanquished, and so forced to obey Socialist orders.
An actual installment of Socialism awaits, first, a certain de-
velopment of Socialist parties and labor unions, and second,
on these organizations securing control of a sovereign and
independent government (if there be any such), or of a group
of industries that dominates it. And if the governments of
the various capitalistic countries are as interdependent as
they seem, a number of them will have to be captured before
the possession of any is secure.

The essential problem before the Socialists under State capi-
talism, with every reform now under serious discussion already
in force, will be fundamentally the same as it is under the private
capitalism of to-day. The capitalists will be even more
powerful than they are, the relative position of the non-
capitalists in government and industry still more inferior
than it now is. However, with better health, more means,
greater leisure, superior education, with a better organized
and more easily comprehended social system, with the enemy
more united and more clearly defined, Socialists believe that

428 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

the conditions for the successful solution of this problem will
be far more favorable.

The evolution of industry and government under capitalism
sets the problems and furnishes the conditions necessary for
the solution, but the solution, if it comes at all, must come
from the Socialists themselves. I have shown what the
Socialists are doing to-day to gain supreme control over
governments. What do they expect to do when they have
obtained that power? I have given little attention to the
steps they will probably take at that time because the ques-
tion belongs to the future, and has not yet been practically
confronted. It is impossible to tell how any body of men
will answer any question until it is before them and they
know their answer must be at once translated into acts. Yet
a few concrete statements as to what Socialists expect and
intend for the future — especially in those matters where
there is practical unanimity among them, may be justified,
and may help to define their present aims. There are certain
matters where Socialists have as yet had no opportunity to
show their position in acts, and yet where their present ac-
tivities, supported by their statements, indicate what their
course will be.

First, how do Socialists expect to proceed during the tran-
sitional period, when they have won supreme power, but
have not yet had time to put any of their more far-reaching
principles into execution? The first of these transitional
problems is : What shall be done with those particular forms
of private property or privilege which stand in the way of an
economic democracy? How far shall existing vested rights
be compensated?

"And as for taking such property from the owners," asks Mr.
H. G. Wells, "why shouldn't we ? The world has not only in the past
taken slaves from their owners, with no compensation or with meager
compensation ; but in the history of mankind, dark as it is, there are
innumerable cases of slave owners resigning their inhuman rights.
. . . There are, no doubt, a number of dull, base, rich people who
hate and dread Socialism for purely selfish reasons ; but it is quite
possible to be a property owner and yet be anxious to see Socialism
come into its own. . . . Though I deny the right to compensation,
I do not deny its probable advisability. So far as the question of
method goes it is quite conceivable that we may partially compensate
the property owners and make all sorts of mitigating arrangements
to avoid cruelty to them in our attempt to end the wider cruelties
of to-day." (1)

429

Socialists are, of course, quite determined that either the
vested interests of all persons dependent on small unearned
incomes and unable otherwise to earn their living shall be
protected, or that they shall be equally well provided for by
other means. No practical Socialist has ever proposed,
during this transitional period, to interfere in any way either
with savings bank accounts or with life insurance policies on
a reasonable scale, or with widows and orphans who are
using incomes from very small pieces of property for iden-
tical purposes.

As to the compensation of the wealthier classes, this be-
comes entirely a secondary question, a matter of pure ex-
pediency. The great British scientist and Socialist, Alfred
Russell Wallace, and the moderate Socialist, Professor Anton
Menger of Vienna, propose almost identical plans of com-
promise with the wealthy classes, — compromises which would
perhaps result in a saving to a Socialist government and
might therefore be advisable, aside from any sentimental
question of protecting or abolishing vested "rights." Pro-
fessor Wallace, objects to "continuing any payments of inter-
ests beyond the lives of the present receivers and their direct
heirs [now living], who may have been brought up to expect
such inheritance." For if we were to compensate any others,
Wallace points out that we would be "actually robbing the
present generation to the enrichment and supposed advan-
tage of certain unborn individuals, who in most instances, as
we now know, are much more likely to be injured than
benefited." (2) Professor Menger proposes that, in ex-
change for property taken by the government from owners
of large fortunes, there should be allotted to them, and their
descendants now living, a modest annuity " sufficient to satisfy
their legitimate needs," as being more reasonable than
Wallace's plan of such an income as they were "brought up
to expect." (3) But in the long run the difference between
the two methods would be immaterial — and the one chosen
would doubtless depend on the social or anti-social attitude
assumed by the wealthy. In either case there would be no
unearned incomes in any generation not yet born. On the
other hand, it is perfectly possible that a Socialist Party which
had seized the reins of political power might, through motives
of caution and self-protection, use greater severity against
those of the capitalists whom they thought had played an
unfair part in the welfare against the installation of the new

430 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

government. It is scarcely to be doubted, for instance, that
those capitalists who tried to embroil us in foreign wars in
order to prevent the establishment of social democracy would
probably be exiled and their property confiscated. Cer-
tainly these measures would be employed against all such
persons as had counseled or participated in the suspension
of civil government or other violent measures.

But where will the money come from even for the payment
of such limited compensation as the Socialists decide upon?
Assuming that the stocks and bonds of the railways and other
large businesses were paid for at the cost of reproduction, or,
let us say, at 50 per cent their present market value, a vast
amount would still be required. The Socialist answer to
this question is very brightly given by America's most
popular and influential Socialist organ, the Appeal to Rea-
son. It reminds us that the Socialists, once having the
reins of political power, will then be the possessors of all the
credit of the government.

"How much money," asks the Appeal, " did Morgan need in order
to buy up all the independent steel companies for the steel trust ? "
And it answers: "Not a penny. Rather than needing money, he
issued stock in the new concern in payment for the old independent
mills, and after all was done proceeded to almost double his stock !
In other words, instead of needing money, he acquired a vast sum in
the transaction. One who is familiar with the way the railroads have
been built and the vast fortunes erected understands that there was
almost no investment. It all came through a series of tricks. Those
tricks, as honest in the reversal as when the capitalist played them,
can be reversed. Hardly a corporation but has forfeited its charter.
With the charter cancelled stocks would tumble and the water
would speedily go. Socialists are not fools that they should merely
fall into the hands of men who think that they can unload on them
in such a manner as to saddle a perpetual debt on the people. If
the steel trust, after organizing and buying up smaller concerns,
could still issue vast series of stocks and bonds, why could not the
Socialists issue all the money they needed to accomplish the same
things? And would not the money based on lands and mills be
as good security as the money we now have based on nothing under
the sun but inflated railroad and trust stocks [securities] ? "

Undoubtedly some such method will be followed — with
those essential industries that will not already have become
colleotive property under capitalism.

In so far as "State Socialism" or collectivist capitalism
will have paved the way, by extensive government own-

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 431

ership, the problem of confiscation or compensation becomes
much simplified. Kautsky has very ably summarized the
prevailing Socialist plan for dealing with it at this point : —

" As soon as all capitalist wealth had taken the form of (govern-
ment) bonds, it would be possible to raise a progressive income,
property and inheritance tax, to a height which until then was im-
possible.

" It is one of our demands at the present tune that such a tax shall
be substituted for all others, especially for the indirect tax.

" But even if we had to-day the power to carry through such a
measure with the support of the other parties, which is plainly im-
possible, because no bourgeois party would go so far, we would at
once find ourselves in the presence of great difficulties.

" It is a well-known fact that the higher the tax the greater the
efforts at tax dodging.

" But when a condition exists where any concealment of income
and property is impossible, even then we would not be in a position
to force the income and property tax as high as we wish, because
the capitalists, if the tax on their income or property pressed them
too closely, would simply leave the State.

" Above a certain measure such taxes cannot rise to-day even if
we had the political power.

" The situation is completely changed, however, when capitalist prop-
erty takes the form of public debts.

" The property to-day that is so hard to find then lies in broad
day-light.

" It would then only be necessary to declare that all bonds must be
public, and it would be known exactly what was the value of every
property and every capitalist income.

" The tax would then be raised as high as desired without the possi-
bility of tax frauds.

" It would then also be impossible to escape taxation by emigra-
tion, for the tax could simply be taken from the interest before it was
paid out. [A similar tax exists in France to-day.]

" // necessary it might be put so high as to be equivalent, or nearly so,
to a confiscation of the great properties.

11 It might be well to ask what is the advantage of this round-about
way of confiscation over that of taking the direct road ?

"The difference between the two methods is not so trifling as at
first appears. „

" Direct confiscation of all capitalists would strike all, the s
and the great, those utterly useless to labor, in the same manner

" It is difficult, often impossible, in this method to separate the
large possession from the small, when these are united in the form ol
money capital in the same undertaking.

" Direct confiscation would complete this quickly, often at <
stroke, while confiscation through taxation permits the disappearance

432 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

of capitalists' property through a long-drawn-out process, proceeding in
the exact degree in which the new order is established and its benevolent
influence made perceptible.

" Confiscation in this way loses its harshness and becomes more
acceptable and less painful.

" The more peaceable the conquest of political power by the pro-
letariat, and the more firmly organized and enlightened it is, the
more we can expect that the primitive forms of confiscation will be
softened." (My italics.) (4)

jNor are any of the more influential Socialists anxious to
make a clean sweep of private enterprise in industry. It is
only the more important and fundamental industries, those
which underlie all the processes of manufacturing, or furnish
the sheer necessities of the people, that must necessarily be
directly controlled by a Socialist society. "It may be
granted," says Kautsky, "that small establishments will
have a definite position in the future in many branches of
industry that produce directly for human consumption,
for machines manufacture essentially only products in bulk,
while many purchasers desire that their personal taste shall
be considered. It is easily possible that under a proletarian
regime the number of small businesses may increase as the
well-being of the masses increases." Of such industries
Kautsky says that they can produce for private customers
or even for the open market. As to-day, he insists, so also
in the future, it will be open to the working people to employ
themselves either in public or private industry.

"A seamstress, for example," he says, "can occupy herself for
a time in a national factory, and at another time make dresses for
private customers at home, then again she can sew for another
customer in her own house, and finally she may, with a few com-
rades, unite in a cooperative for the manufacture of clothing for

"The most manifold forms of property in the means of production

— national, municipal, cooperatives of consumption and production
and private industry can exist beside each other in a Socialist society

— the most diverse forms of industrial organization, bureaucratic,
trades union, cooperative and individual ; the most diverse forms
of remunerative labor, fixed wages, time wages, piece wages, profit
sharing in the economies in raw material, machinery, etc., profit
sharing in the results of intensive labor ; the most diverse forms of
distribution of products, like contract by purchase from the ware-
houses of the State, from municipalities, from cooperatives of pro-
duction, from producers themselves, etc., etc. The same manifold

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 433

character of economic mechanism that exists to-day is possible in a
Socialistic society. Only the hunting and the hunted, the struggling
and the resisting, the annihilating and being annihilated of the
present competitive struggle are excluded, and therewith the con-
trast between exploiter and exploited." (Italics mine.) (5)

Equally important, or more important, than private co-
operative industries in the Socialist State, it is expected, will
be the increase of private organizations of other kinds, especially
in the fields of publications, education, etc., by what Kautsky
calls free associations, which will serve art and science and
public life and advance production in these spheres in the most
diverse ways, or undertake it directly, as the associations
which to-day bring out plays, publish newspapers, purchase
artistic works, publish writings, fit out scientific expeditions.
He expects such private organizations to play an even more im-
portant role than the government, for "it is their destiny to
enter into the place now occupied by capital and individual
production and to organize and to lead mankind as a social
being," (6) (Italics mine.)

"The utmost restriction of private property under Socialism,"
Mrs. Oilman says, "leaves us still every article of personal use and
pleasure. One may still 'own' land by paying the government for
it as now ; with such taxation, however, as would make it very ex-
pensive to own too much ! One may own one's house and all that
is in it : one's clothes and tools and decorations ; one's horses, car-
riages and automobiles; one's flying machines — presently. All
'personal property' remains in our personal hands.

"But no man or group of men could own the country's coal and
decide how much the public can have, and what we must pay for it.
Private holding of public property would be abolished." (7)

It can never be too often repeated or too strongly em-
phasized that, with some unfortunate exceptions, from the
time of Marx to the present, Socialists have opposed not
private property, but capitalism. It is the domination of
society by the capitalists, i.e. "capitalism" or the capitalist
system, that is to be done away with.

"The distinguishing feature of Communism," wrote Marx, using
this word instead of Socialism, "is not the abolition of property
generally, but the abolition of capitalist property. But modern
capitalist property is the final and most complete expression of that
system of producing and appropriating products that is based on
class antagonism, on the expropriation of the many by the few." (8)

2F

434 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

In seeking the better organization of industry and leaving
the most perfect freedom to individuals and to private or-
ganizations, what the Socialists are really aiming at is really
to restrict the government to a government of things rather than
to a government of men; and this phrase is in common use
among them. It is sought not to increase the power of higher
officials over government employees and citizens, but, on the
contrary, to limit their powers to the necessities of industry
itself, and to leave the most perfect and complete freedom
to the individual in every other sphere, as well as in industry,
so far as the physical conditions themselves allow. There
is no doubt, for instance, that whole departments of restrictive
legislation directed against individual liberty would at once
be repealed by any Socialist government (though not by a
government of so-called "State Socialists").

Perhaps the idea is best expressed by the Belgian Socialist,
Vandervelde : —

"The capitalist State has as an end the government of men; it
needs centralized power, ministers ready to employ force, function-
aries blindly obeying the least sign. Enlarge its domain [i.e. in-
stitute ' State Socialism.' — W.] and you will create a vast barracks,
you will institute a republic of scoundrels.

"The Socialist State, on the contrary, will have for its end an
administration of things ; it will need a decentralized organization,
practical men of science, industrial forces over which spontaneity
and initiative will be required above every other quality." (9)

Surely such a State does not resemble in any way the pa-
ternalistic, bureaucratic capitalism or "State Socialism" to-
wards which we are at present tending.

"It is quite as possible," says Mr. Spargo, "for a government to
exploit the workers in the interests of a privileged class as it is for
private individuals, or quasi-private corporations, to do so. Ger-
many with her State-owned railroads, or Austria-Hungary and
Russia with their great government monopolies, are not more Social-
istic, but less so than the United States, where these tilings are owned
by individuals or corporations. The United States is nearer Socialism
for the reason that its political institutions have developed farther
towards pure democracy than those of the other countries named.
. . . The real motif of Socialism is not merely to change the form
of industrial organization and ownership, but to eliminate exploita-
tion. . . . Every abuse of capitalism calls forth a fresh installment
of legislation restrictive of personal liberty, with an army of prying
officials. Legislators keep busy making laws, judges keep busy in-

THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 435

terpreting and enforcing them, and a swarm of petty officials are
kept busy attending to this intricate machine of popular government.
In sober truth, it must be said that capitalism has created, and could
not exist without, the very bureaucracy it charges Socialism with
attempting to foist upon the nation." (10)

The Socialists are as far from proposing anything resem-
bling a system of mechanical and absolute equality as they are
from attacking personal or industrial liberty. Ninety-nine
and one half per cent of the product of the men of the different
social classes, says Edward Bellamy, "is due in every case to
advantages afforded by modern civilization." (11) So that
if one man is twice as capable as another, it merely raises the
proportion of the product due to his personal efforts from one
half of one per cent to one per cent. International Socialism
realizes with Bellamy that the product is social in far greater
proportion than is at present recognized, but it does not deny
that there are cases in which the contribution of the in-
dividual is more important even than everything that can
be attributed to his social advantages. It does not propose,
therefore, to level incomes. It is true that this communist
principle of Bellamy's has a wide practical application both
in the Socialist scheme of things and in present-day society,
as, for example, in free schools and parks, and in the "State
Socialist" program. But the extension of such communism,
the distribution of services to the general public without
charge, is due to-day, not to any acceptance of the general
principle, but to the fact that it is inconvenient or impossible
to attempt to distribute the cost of many services among in-
dividuals in proportion as they take advantage of them.

Kautsky expresses the prevailing Socialist view when he
says that the principle of equality, if distinguished from mere
artificial leveling, will play a certain role in a Socialist society.
Without any definite legislation in that direction the
natural economic forces of such a society will tend to raise
low wages, and at the same time, by the increase of competi-
tion for higher positions, to lower somewhat the highest
salaries. For if Socialists are opposed to any kind of artificial
equality or leveling, they are still more opposed to artificial
inequality, and all the initial advantages that arise out of
the possession of wealth or privileges in education will be
done away with. (12)

On the supposition that Socialism proposes a communistic
leveling of income, it has been stated very often by Socialists

436 SOCIALISM AS IT IS

that it would be necessary to abolish wages, but there is no
authority for this either from Karl Marx or from any of
his most prominent successors. It is "wage slavery" or
"the wage system" that is to be abolished. In his letter on
the Gotha Program written in 1875 Marx said that there
will be applied to wages "the principle which at present
governs the exchange or merchandise to that degree in which
identical values are being exchanged" ; that is to say, supply
and demand, when it operates jreely, will give us a standard
also in a Socialist system. There will be no starvation wages,
no inflated salaries, no "rent" of educational advantages, no
unearned income and no monopoly prices, but automatically
adjustable prices and wages will continue. In 1896 Jules
Guesde, perhaps the best known disciple of Marx in France,
expressed nearly the same idea in the Chamber of Deputies —
"The play of supply and demand," he said, "will have
sufficed to determine without any arbitrary or violent act,
that problem of distribution which had seemed insoluble to
you before."

Here again we see that Socialism, in its aversion to all
artificial systems and every restriction of personal liberty is
far more akin to the individualism of Herbert Spencer than
it is to the " State Socialism " of Plato. Socialists expect their
children to be far wiser and more fortunate than themselves,
and do not intend to attempt to decide anything for them
that can well be left undecided. They intend only that these
children shall have the freedom and power necessary to direct
society as they think best. The few principles I have men-
tioned are perhaps the most important of those they believe
to be the irreducible minimum needed to insure this result.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

(1) John Spargo, "Karl Marx," pp. 312, 331.

(2) John Spargo, op. cit., p. 116.

(3) John Spargo, op. cit., p. 73.

g (4) The Independent (New York), commenting on the Socialist
victory in the Milwaukee municipal elections of April, 1910.

(5) " Recent Socialist Literature," by John Graham Brooks
Atlantic Monthly, 1910. Page 283.

(6) Collier's Weekly, July 30, 1910.

(7) H. G. Weils, "Socialism and the Family."

(8) H. G. Wells, "The New Macchiaveili."

PART I

CHAPTER I

(1) The Socialist Review (London), April, 1909.

(2) The New Age (London), Nov. 4, 1909.

(3) Edward Bernstein, "Evolutionary Socialism," p. 154.

(4) Winston Churchill, "Liberalism and the Social Problem,"
p. 345.

(5) H. G. Wells, "New Worlds for Old," p. 185.

(6) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 80.

(7) Winston Churchill, op. cit., pp. 326, 327.

(8) Winston Churchill, op. cit., pp. 326.

(9) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 396.

(10) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 399.

(11) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 336.

(12) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 339.

(13) Lloyd George, "Better Times," p. 163.

(14) Lloyd George, op. cit., pp. 94-101.

(15) Lloyd George, op. cit., p. 58.

(16) Lloyd George, op. cit., p. 174.

(17) Lord Rosebery's Speech at Glasgow, Sept. 10, 1909.

(18) Louis F. Post, " Social Service," p. 341.

(19) The Public (Chicago), Nov. 4, 1910.

(20) Henry George, " Progress and Poverty," Book IV, p. 454.

(21) Professor E. A. Ross, " Sin and Society," p. 151.

(22) Frederick C. Howe, " Privilege and Democracy in America,"
p. 277.

437

438 NOTES

CHAPTER II

(1) Lincoln Steffens in Everybody's Magazine, beginning Sep-
tember, 1910.

(2) McClure's Magazine, 1911.

(3) Governor Woodrow Wilson, Speech of April 13, 1911.

(4) The Outlook, Nov. 18, 1911.

CHAPTER III

(1) William Allen White in the American Magazine, January,
1911.

(2) Dr. Lyman Abbott in a series of articles published in the
Outlook, 1910, entitled "The Spirit of Democracy," now in book
form.

(3) New York Journal, Aug. 2, 1910.

(4) The Outlook, Sept. 10, 1910.

(5) The Outlook, May 24, 1911.

(6) Governor Woodrow Wilson, Speech in Portland, Oregon,
May 18, 1911.

(7) Speech in Senate, May 24, 1911.

(8) Lloyd George, op. cit., pp. 33, 34.

(9) Lloyd George, op. cit., p. 35.

CHAPTER IV

(1) "Fabianism and Empire," p. 62.

(2) Articles by Hyman Strunsky on Welfare Work, The Coming
Nation, 1910.

(3) do, do.

(4) Lloyd George, op. cit., p. 93.

(5) Lloyd George, op. cit., p. 81.

(6) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 101.

(7) John A. Hqbson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," p. 3.

(8) Professor Simon Patten, The Annals of the American Acad-
emy of Political and Social Science, July, 1908.

(9) Speech of President Hadley before the Brooklyn Institute
of Art and Sciences (1909).

(10) New York Times, Nov. 12, 1911.

(11) F. H. Streightoff, "The Standard of Living among the In-
dustrial People of America."

(12) Interview with Sir Joseph Ward, New York, April 15, 1911.

(13) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 325.

(14) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 186.

(15) Winston Churchill, op. cit., pp. 240, 243.

(16) Winston Churchill, op. cit., pp. 250, 252.

(17) Lloyd George, op. cit., pp. 68-69.

(18) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 197.

(19) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 197.

(20) The Outlook, June, 1911.

NOTES 439

(21) Sidney Webb, the* Contemporary Review (1908) and "Basis
and Policy of Socialism," pp. 83, 84.

(22) The Survey (New York), 1910, pp. 81-82, 466, 731-732.

(23) H. G. Wells, "First and Last Things," p. 133.

(24) Edmond Kelly, "Twentieth-Century Socialism," p. 314.

(25) Vorwaerts (Milwaukee), Feb. 3, 1898.

4

CHAPTER V

(1) Victor S. Clark, "The Labour Movement in Australasia."

(2) Professor Le Rossignol and Mr. William D. Stewart, "Com-
pulsory Arbitration in New Zealand," in the Quarterly Journal of
Economics. Reprinted in their book, "State Socialism in New
Zealand."

N. B. The reader who is interested is referred to the whole of
both these volumes. There is little matter in either that does not
have a direct bearing on our subject, and they have been utilized
throughout this and the following chapter.

(3) The Coming Nation, Sept. 2, 1911.

(4) The Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 25, 1911.

(5) The New York Times, Nov. 25, 1911.

CHAPTER VI

(1) Special Correspondence of New York Evening Post, dated
Sidney, Dec. 12, 1909.

(2) The data upon which this chapter is based is also obtained
chiefly from Mr. Victor Clark's "Labour Movement in Australasia,"
and "State Socialism in New Zealand," by Stewart and Le Rossignol.

(3) Victor S. Clark, op. cit.

(4) Stewart and Rossignol, op. cit.

(5) The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1911.

CHAPTER VII

(1) Henry George, "Progress and Poverty," Vol. II, p. 515.

(2) John Mitchell, "Organized Labor" (Preface).

(3) John A. Hobson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," p. 100.

(4) For this and later quotations from Dr. Eliot in this chapter,
see his little book entitled "More Money for the Public Schools.

(5) See article by Dr. Eliot in the School Review, April, 1909.

•* * . , , .• * t .1 _ TJ J J Ifllfl

\*S / kJ^S? OH VI\jl\J WJ .*-' »• 1 1 /\1 rt

(6) "Knowledge and Education," the Independent, 1910.

(7) Dexter, " History of Education in the United States,

CHAPTER VIII

(1) Kautsky, "The Capitalist Class" (pamphlet).

(2) Marx's letters to Sorge.

(3) Marx's letters to Sorge.

p. 173.

440 NOTES

PART II

CHAPTER I

(1) The Communist Manifesto.

(2) The Coming Nation, Sept. 9, 1911.

(3) Mr. Gompers's articles in the Federationist have recently ap-
peared in book form.

(4) Carl D. Thompson, ."The Constructive Program of Social-
ism " (pamphlet).

(5) Victor Grayson and G. R. S. Taylor, ."The Problem of
Parliament," p. 56.

(6) Editorial in the Socialist Review (London), May, 1910.

(7) Vorwaerts (Milwaukee), Jan. 3, 1893.

(8) Edmond Kelly, "Individualism and Collectivism," p. 398.

CHAPTER II

(1) Charles Rappaport, "Das Ministerium Briand," Die Neue
Zeit (1910).

(2) See Die Neue Zeit, April, 1911, p. 46. Article by Vander-
velde.

(3) The Avanti, April, 1911.

(4) The Avanti, Oct. 18, 1911.

(5) Critica Sociale, Nov. 1, 1911.

(6) Azione Socialista, Nov. 19, 1911.

(7) Avanti, Dec. 2 and 3, 1911.

CHAPTER III

(1) Quoted by John Graham Brooks, in article above cited.

(2) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 60.

(3) Philip Snowden, "A Socialist Budget."

(4) Speech in Carnegie Hall, New York, Jan. 13, 1909.

(5) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 36.

(6) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Government," Vol. I, p. 1.

(7) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 114.

(8) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 116.

(9) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Government," Vol. II,
p. 130.

(10) J. R. MacDonald, !' Socialism and Government," Vol. I,
p. 91.

(11) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Government," Vol. II,
p. 4.

(12) Report on Fabian Policy, p. 13.

(13) The Socialist Review, January, 1909, p. 888.

(14) John A. Hobson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," p. 46.

(15) John A. Hobson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," p. 6.

(16) J. R. MacDonald, "Socialism and Society," p. 133.

(17) Editorial in the Socialist Review (London), May, 1910.

(18) "Socialism and Government," Vol. II, p. 12.

NOTES 441

(19) Andrew Carnegie, "Problems of To-day," pp. 123 ff.

(20) The New Age, Nov. 4, 1909.

(21) "Fabian Essays," p. 180.

(22) "Fabian Essays," p. 187.

(23) "Fabian Essays," p. 184.

(24) "Fabianism and the Empire," p. 5.

(25) H. G. Wells, "New Worlds for Old," pp. 268-275.

(26) H. G. Wells, "New Worlds for Old," pp. 268-275.

(27) John A. Hobson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," pp. 116, 132.

(28) H. G. Wells, "First and Last Things," p. 242.

(29) The New Age (London), June 23, 1910.

(30) The New Age, June 2, 1910.

(31) The New Age, Dec. 23, 1909.

(32) The New Age, Jan. 4, 1908.

(33) The New Age, June 23, 1910.

(34) The New York Call, Oct. 22 and 29, 1911.

(35) The New Age, March 26, 1910.

(36) The New York Call, Oct. 22, 1911.

CHAPTER IV

(1) Journal of Political Economy, October, 1911.

(2) Eugene V. Debs in the International Socialist Review (Chi-
cago), Jan. 1, 1911.

(3) The Social-Democratic Herald (Milwaukee), Oct. 12, 1901.

(4) The Social- Democratic Herald, Feb. 22, 1902.

(5) The Social- Democratic Herald, May 28, 1904.

(6) Press Despatch, Aug. 26, 1911

(7) New York Journal, April 22, 1910.

(8) Social-Democratic Herald, Vol. XII, No. 12.

(9) Social-Democratic Herald, Vol. XII, No. 12.

(10) Social-Democratic Herald, Vol. XII, March 24, 1906.

(11) The Bridgeport Socialist, Oct. 29, 1911.

(12) The New York Times, Oct. 20, 1911.

(13) New Yorker Volkszeitung, Dec. 9, 1911.

(14) New York Evening Post, Nov. 13, 1911.

(15) Collier's Weekly, Dec. 9, 1911.

(16) Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 18, 1911.

(17) The Outlook, Aug. 26, 1911.

(18) The New York Call, Aug. 14, 1911.

(19) W. R. Shier in the New York Call, Aug. 16, 1911.

(20) Speech at Carnegie Hall, New York, Oct. 15, 1910.

(21) Hampton's Magazine, January, 1911.

(22) "Business," p. 290.

(23) ."Business," p. 114.

CHAPTER V

(1) W. J. Ghent, "Socialism and Success," p. 47.

(2) Rappaport, '.' Der Kongress von Nimes," Die Neue Zeit, 1910,
p. 821.

(3) Die Neue Zeit, Oct. 27, 1911.

442 NOTES

(4) "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911,
p. 121.

(5) "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911,
pp. 132-133.

(6) "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911,
pp. 131-134.

(7) "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911,
pp. 131-134.

(8) "Le Syndicalisme contre L'Etat," pp. 223-235, 239-242.

(9) ."Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," p. 114.

CHAPTER VI

(1) Marx and Engels, the " Communist Manifesto."

(2) Anton Menger, "L'Etat Socialiste" (Paris, 1904), p. 359.

(3) August Bebel, "Woman, Past, Present, and Future" (San
Francisco, 1897), p. 128.

(4) Frederick Engels, "Anti-Duhring" (3d ed., Stuttgart,
1894), p. 92.

(5) Frederick Engels, "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,"
pp. 71-72.

(6) Karl Kautsky's "Erfurter Programm," p. 129.

(7) John Martin, in the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1908.

(8) Professor John Bates Clark, in the Congregationalist and
Christian World (Boston), May 15, 1909.

(9) Otto Bauer, "Die Nationalitaeten-frage und die Sozial-
demokratie," p. 487.

(10) Social- Democratic Herald, July 31, 1909.

(11) Social-Democratic Herald, Vol. XII, No. 5.

(12) Professor Werner Sombert, "Socialism and the Socialist
Movement," p. 59.

(13) Jaures, "Studies in Socialism."

(14) Kautsky, "The Road to Power," p. 101.

(15) Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 66.

(16) Kautsky, "The Social Revolution, pp. 66-67.

(17) Kautsky, International Socialist Review, 1910.

(18) Die Neue Zeit, Sept. 11, 1911.

CHAPTER VII

(1) Quoted by Chairman Singer at the Congress of 1909.

(2) Quoted by Vorwaerts (Berlin), Sept. 24, 1909.

(3) The proceedings of most of the German Party Congresses
may be obtained through the Vorwaerts (Berlin), those of the In-
ternational and American Congresses from the Secretary of the So-
cialist Party, 180 Washington St., Chicago, 111.

(4) Kautsky, "Der Aufstand in Baden," in the Neue Zeit, 1910,
p. 624.

(5) The Socialist Review, April, 1909.

(6) The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1911.

(7) The New York Call, Jan. 6 and 8, 1912.

NOTES 443

(8) The New York Call, Jan. 9, 1912.

(9) The Socialist Review (London), April, 1909.

(10> "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," 1911 edition, pp
114-116.

(11) "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," 1911 edition DD
14—15.

PART III

CHAPTER I

(1) The American Magazine, October, 1911.

(2) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 389.

(3) Die Neue Zeit, Oct. 27, 1911.

(4) Speech just before Congressional Elections of 1910.

(5) Speech delivered by Mr. Roosevelt, Dec. 13, 1910.

(6) John Spargo, "Karl Marx."

(7) Edward Bernstein, "Evolutionary Socialism," p. 143.

(8) Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," pp. 58-59.

(9) The Outlook, March 13, 1909.

(10) Karl Kautsky in Vorwaerls (Berlin), Feb. 7, 1909.

(11) Quoted by Jaures, "Studies in Socialism," p. 103.

(12) Karl Kautsky, "Erfurter Programm," p. 258.

(13) Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," pp. 48-49.

(14) The International Socialist Review (Chicago), October, 1911.

(15) H. G. Wells, "This Misery of Boots," p. 34.

(16) Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 51.

CHAPTER II

(1) Karl Kautsky, "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie,"
edition of 1911, p. 127.

(2) Karl Kautsky, "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie,"
edition of 1911, pp. 126-128.

(3) Quotations from Kautsky following in this chapter are
taken chiefly from his "Agrarfrage."

(4) Emile Vandervelde, "Le Socialisme Agraire."

(5) Die Neue Zeit, June 16, 1911.

(6) Proceedings of 1910 Convention of the Socialist Party of
the United States.

(7) Die Neue Zeit, June 16 and 30, 1911.

(8) A. M. Simons, " The American Farmer," pp. 160-162.

(9) The 1908 Convention of the Socialist Party of the United
States.

(10) Reprinted at frequent intervals by the Industrial Democrat,
Oklahoma City.

CHAPTER III

(1) H. G. Wells, "This Misery of Boots," p. 34.

(2) Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man under Socialism" (bro-
chure).

(3) Bernard Shaw's series in the New Age (1908).

444 NOTES

(4) Karl Kautsky, the New York Call, Nov. 14, 1909.

(5) Karl Kautsky, " Parlamentarismus und Demokratie,"
pp. 124, 125, 138.

(6) Emile Vandervelde, "Le Socialisme Agraire," p. 236.

CHAPTER IV

(1) Eugene V. Debs, "His Life and Writings," p. 140.

(2) John Mitchell, "Organized Labor," p. 208.

(3) George H. Shibley in the American Federationist, June, 1910.

(4) Samuel Gompers in the American Federationist, 1910.

(5) John Mitchell, "Organized Labor" (Preface).

(6) Eugene V. Debs, op. cit.

(7) Karl Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit, 1909, p. 679.

(8) Karl Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit, 1909, p. 680.

(9) Winston Churchill, op. cit., pp. 77, 336, 337.

(10) Die Neue Zeit, June 11, 1911.

(11) The Weekly Bulletin of the Garment Trades (New York),
1910.

(12) The Mine Workers' Journal (Indianapolis), Aug. 26, 1909,
and April 21, 1910.

CHAPTER V

(1) The New York Call, Nov. 13, 1911.

(2) Edmond Kelly, "Twentieth-Century Socialism," p. 152.

(3) The Socialist Review (London), September, 1910.

(4) Winston Churchill, op. cit., p. 73.

(5) The Socialist Review (London), October, 1911.

(6) The New York Call, April 17, 1910.

(7) The International Socialist Review, June, 1911.

(8) The Industrial Syndicalist (London), July and September,
1910.

(9) Le Mouvement Socialiste (Paris), 1909, article entitled, "Ple-
chanoff centre les Syndicalistes."

(10) "Le Federation des Bourses de Travail de France," p. 67.

(11) Hubert Lagardelle, Le Socialisme Ouvrier (Paris), 1911.

(12) Le Mouvement Socialiste, 1909, article entitled, "Classe
Sociale et Parti Politique."

(13) Hubert Lagardelle, " Syndicalisme et Socialisme" (Paris),
p. 52.

(14) Hubert Lagardelle, "Syndicalisme et Socialisme" (Paris),
p. 50.

(15) Paul Louis, "Le Syndicalisme contre 1'Etat," pp. 4-7.

(16) Paul Louis, "Le Syndicalisme contre 1'Etat," p. 244.

(17) Karl Kautsky, ." Parlamentarismus und Demokratie,"
pp. 136 and 137.

CHAPTER VI

(1) The following quotations are taken from the brochure,
"Der Generalstreik," by Henriette Roland-Hoist (Dresden, 1905).

(2) From a private letter published editorially in the New York
Sun.

NOTES 445

(3) The Outlook, Nov. 25, 1911.

(4) Collier's Weekly, Sept. 2, 1911.

(5) The Outlook, Aug. 26, 1911.

(6) Die Neue Zeit, Oct. 27, 1911.

CHAPTER VII

(1) Eugene V. Debs, "Life and Writings," p. 456.

(2) Tolstoi's Essay entitled, "Where is the Way Out?" —
October, 1900.

(3) Dr. Karl Liebknecht, "Militarismus und Anti-Militarismus "
(brochure).

(4) Dr. Karl Liebknecht, "Militarismus und Anti-Militarismus "
(brochure).

(5) George R. Kirkpatrick, i' War — What For?" pp. 318-
325.

(6) George R. Kirkpatrick, "War — What For?" (Preface).

(7) Bernard Shaw, "John Bull's Other Island," pp. xxxix-xliv.

CHAPTER VIII

(1) Rose Luxemburg, "Social-Reform oder Revolution."

(2) "La Guerre Sociale " (Paris), April 20, 1910.

(3) Kautsky, "The Road to Power," Chapter V.

(4) The organ of the Civic Federation, Nov. 15, 1909.

(5) "The Road to Power," Chapter VI.

(6) "The Road to Power," p. 50.

(7) From a press interview with Mr. Henry Watterson in 1909 ;
verified by a private letter to the author.

CHAPTER IX

(1) H. G. Wells, " This Misery of Boots," pp. 29-32.

(2) Alfred Russell Wallace, "The Railways and the Nation,"
the Arena, January, 1907.

(3) Anton Menger, " L'Etat Socialiste " (Paris, 1904), p. 348.

(4) Karl Kautsky, " The Social Revolution," pp. 121-123.

(5) Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," pp. 165-167.

(6) Karl Kautsky, " The Social Revolution," p. 179.

(7) Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Oilman in the Forerunner (1910).

(8) The Communist Manifesto.

(9) Emile Vandervelde, " Collectivism," p. 126.

(10) John Spargo, " Socialism."

(11) Edward Bellamy, " Equality," p. 89.

(12) Karl Kautsky, " Das Erfurter Programm," pp. 161-162.

INDEX

(FOR SUBJECT TITLES OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, AND PERIODICALS
SEE LIST OF REFERENCES)

Abbot, Lyman, 33, 36, 97, 283, 284.
AGRICULTURE, 7, 85, 96, 300-323.
America, see United States.
American Federation of Labor, see

United States Labor Unions.
Amsterdam, see International Con-
gresses.
Andre, 381.

Appeal to Reason, The, 321, 430.
Asquith, Herbert, 153, 362.
Augagneur, 132, 134, 398.
Australasia, the Labour Parties of,
85, 86, 92-94, 128, 146, 151, 168,
174.

Australasia, "States Socialism" in:
the labor policy, 53, 86 ;
agrarian and land policy, 85, 88, 89 ;
government ownership, 84, 85, 89-

91.

Austria, the Socialist Party of, 239,
247, 252, 259, 347.

Baden, 256-264.
Baker, Ray Stannard, 32.
Barnes, George, 164, 165.
Bauer, Otto, 239, 247.
Bebel, August :

on reformism, 117, 123, 126, 130,
131;

on revolutionary politics, 232 ;

on the revolutionary trend, 251,
252, 254, 255, 258-264 ;

on the class struggle, 281 ;

on the agricultural problem, 301;

on the general strike, 390, 391 ;

on revolution, 416, 418, 419.
Belgium, the Socialist Party of, 139,

141, 146, 252.
Bellamy, Edward, 435.
Belloc, Hilaire, 160, 161, 163.

Berger, Victor ;
and the "State Socialist" labor

policy, 63 ;

on reformism, 126, 211 ;
as leader of Milwaukee Socialists

178, 189, 195, 202-207;
on revolutionary politics, 240-242 ;
on the agricultural and land ques-
tion, 317, 318;
on political revolution, 418.
Bernstein, Edward, 1, 99, 179, 180,

240, 285, 286, 331.
Bismarck, 43, 403, 404.
Bissolati, 140-144.
Bland, Hubert, 161.
Bohn, Frank, 373-375.
Boston Herald, The, 379.
Boudin, Louis, 180.
Bowling, Peter, 69, 70.
Brandeis, Louis, 60.
Briand, Aristide, 126, 132-134, 137,

388, 394-398, 421, 422.
Bridgeport Socialist, The, 193.
Brisbane, Arthur, 33-35, see also New

York Journal.

Brooks, John Graham, viii;
Brousse, Paul, 135.
Bryan, William Jennings, 30, 180,

341.

Burns, John, 251, 357.
Butler, Nicholas Murray, 392.

Call, New York, The, 198, 272, 399.
Canada, compulsory arbitration in,

78-80.

Canada, the Socialist Party of, 288.
Carnegie, Andrew, 63, 97, 151, 152.

CATHOLIC CHURCH, 87, 258.
Chesterton, G. K., 160.
Churchill, Winston:
447

448

INDEX

and the Social reform program, 2,

4-7, 9, 11, 12;
and the politics of state capitalism,

42;
and the state capitalist labor

policy, 50, 64, 55, 57-59 ;
and compulsory arbitration, 82 ;
and the Labor Party, 151, 152;
and the class struggle, 280, 298 ;
and labor unions, 348, 360, 361,

363.
Civic Federation, The, 343, 344, 419-

421.
Clark, Professor John Bates, 124, 236,

237

Clark, Victor S., 66, 69, 79, 80, 90.
CLASS STRUGGLE, THE, 33-36, 135-
136, 245-247, 276-287, 297-299,
347 ; see also REVOLUTION.
Collier's Weekly, ix, 199, 397.
Compere-Morel, 201, 309, 315.

Davenport, Daniel, 68.
Debs, Eugene V.:

on "State Socialism," 83 ;

on reformism, 175-177, 191 ;

on labor unions, 335, 343-345 ;

on syndicalism, 366, 372, 375 ;

on revolution, 401.
DEMOCRATIC REFORMS, 31-45, 148-
150, 155, 184, 217-230, 378, 379.
Denmark, 259, 260.
De Toqueville, Alexander, 130.
Devine, Edward, 61.
Dreher, W. C., 94, 269.
Duchez, Louis, 332, 369.

EDUCATION, see PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Eliot, Charles W., 51, 79, 80, 100-105.
Elm, von, 391.
Engels, Friedrich, 112-115, 231-233.

Fabian Society, see Great Britain.

Ferri, Enrico, 132.

Fischer, Richard, 263.

Fisher, Irving, 53.

Fisher, Premier, 85.

Flexner, Abraham, 52.

France, labor unions in, 366, 377-384,

388, 394-398, 412, 414.
France, the Socialist Party of :

reformism in, 135-139, 200, 240,
244, 247, 274 ;

on the land and agricultural ques-
tion, 309, 315-318 ;
on labor unions (see France, labor

unions) ;
the revolution, 390, 414, 417, 418,

421, 422, 424.
Frank, 257, 259, 262.
Frankfurter Zeitung, 256.

Garment Workers, United, 190, 350.
Gary, Judge, 16, 29.
Gaynor, William J., 195, 283.
George, Henry, 13, 14, 97, 320, 323.
Germany, "labor unions " in, 68, 336,

346, 347, 352, 384, 385.
Germany, the Socialist Party of :
position on reformism in, 125, 128,

217-235, 245-247 ;
its revolutionary trend, 248-270;
position on class struggle, 280, 284,

285, 288-291, 327-331;
the agricultural question in, 300-

304, 307, 309, 312, 317, 318;
the revolution in, 389-391, 403,

404, 407, 414, 419, 423, 424.
Germany, "State Socialism" in, 2,4,
43, 51, 52,55-57, 94-96; see also
Bismarck.

Ghent, W. J., 205, 210.
Oilman, Charlotte Perkins, 433.
Gompers, Samuel, 121, 336-338, 341-

343, 345-347, 349.

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP, 4, ,14, 16,
17, 24, 85, 90, 111, 112, 126, 146-
147, 207-209, 233-234.
Grayson, Victor, 122.
Great Britain, labor unions :
compulsory arbitration, 68 ;
attitude to class struggle, 341, 348.
the new unionism, 354, 355-366,

371, 372.

Great Britain, the Labour and So-
cialist parties of (see also Mac-
Donald, Shaw, Wells, Webb,
Hardie, etc.) :
The Labour Party, 1, 44, 123, 146-

151,164-168,173,174;
The Fabian Society, 2, 47, 62, 149,

152-157, 159-164, 410-412;
The Social-Democratic Party, 123 ;
The Independent Labour Party,
146, 147, 151-153, 164-167, 240 ;
The Socialist Party, 167, 168.

INDEX

449

Great Britain, "State Socialism" in:
the Social reform program, 1-12 ;
the politics of the New Capitalism,

42-45 ;

the labor policy, 47-51, 53-59,61,62;
compulsory arbitration, 80-83 ;
the school question, 104 ;
"State Socialism" and the So-
cialists, 122, 123, 146, 147, 153.
Guerard, 381.

Guesde, Jules, 131, 137, 250, 318, 424,
436.

Hadley, President, 51.

Hanford, Benjamin, 211.

Hard, William, 60.

Bardie, James Keir, 146, 147, 164, 165.

Harlan, Justice, 202.

Hartshorn, Vernon, 355.

Haywood, William, 366, 371-376.

Hearst, William Randolph, 33, 215.

Herron, George D., 238, 335.

HervS, Gustave, 138, 295, 372, 375,

382, 417, 418, 422.
Hillquit, Morris, 210, 213.
Hobson, John A., 50, 99, 150, 157, 158.
Holmes, George K., 97.
Howe, Frederick C., 15.
Hoxie, Professor Robert F., 175.
Hughes, Jessie Wallace, 41, 68, 176,

339, 390.
Hungary, 152, 163, 336, 345.

Independent, The, viii, 124.
INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM, 354-386.
International Socialist Congresses :

Paris (1900), 139, 248, 249;

Amsterdam (1904), 137-139, 248-
251;

Stuttgart (1907), 406.
International Socialist Review, The, 372.
Italy, the labor unions of, 376.
Italy, the Socialist Party of, 140-
145, 398.

Jaures, Jean :

on reformism, 132-139, 141, 144,

146;

on revolutionary politics, 242, 244 ;
on the revolutionary trend, 249-

251;

on the general strike, 389, 390.
Justice, 123, 167.

2a

Kautsky, Karl :

on the first step towards Socialism,
111, 112;

on reformism, 153 ;

on reform by menace of revolu-
tion, 217-227 ;

on revolutionary politics, 233-236,
244-247 ;

on the revolutionary trend, 248,
249, 253, 264-268, 273, 274;

on the class struggle, 290, 291, 296,
297, 299 ;

on the land and agricultural ques-
tion, 300-304, 307, 312, 317, 318;

on the working class, 327-330;

on labor unions, 346 ;

on syndicalism, 384-385 ;

on political revolution, 416, 419,
423, 424 ;

on the transition to Socialism,

431-433, 435.

Kelly, Edmond, 63, 128, 357.
Kirkpatrick, George R., 408-410.

LABOR LEGISLATION, 46-96, 137,

339

LABOR UNIONS, 66-84, 334-400.
Labour Party, see Great Britain and

Australasia.
Labriola, Arturo, 376.
Lafargue, Paul, 232, 247, 318.
La Follette, Robert M., 25, 26, 68,

179, 180, 182, 187, 277, 341, 393.
La Follette' s Weekly, 1, 23, 188.
Lagardelle, Herbert, 376-382, 417.
LAND QUESTION, 3-6, 87-89, 92, 93,

96, 113, 234, 300-323.
La Salle, Ferdinand, 248, 425.
Ledebour, 254, 255.
Legien, Karl, 342, 347.
Le Rossignol and Stewart, 70-75, 89,

91.

Liebknecht, Karl, 258, 403, 404, 408.
Liebknecht, Wilhelm, cii, 117, 125,

236, 248, 250, 288, 289, 327.
Lincoln, 278.
Lloyd George, David :

and the social reform program, 2,

7-11;

and the politics of State Capital-
ism, 42-44 ;
and the State capitalist labor

policy, 48, 49, 56, 62 ;

450

INDEX

and compulsory arbitration, 80 ;

and the Labor Party, 151 ;

and labor unions, 360, 386.
London, Jack, 410.
Louis, Paul, 225, 382, 383.
Lunn, George R., 198.
Luxemburg, Rosa, 416.

McCarthy, Mayor, 190, 332.
McClure's Magazine, 24, 98.
MacDonald, J. R. :

on the reformist policy, 1, 123, 273 ;
as spokesman for the Labor Party,

146-152, 164-167 ;
on syndicalism, 360, 365, 386.
Machinists, 349.
Maxwell, Superintendent, 105.
Mann, Tom, 357-359, 364, 365, 370-

372.

Martin, John, 235.
Marx, Karl :

Socialism viewed as a movement,

vii, viii ;

on "State Socialism," 111-115;
on Socialist political policy, 117,

118, 130, 212, 213, 231, 260;
on agriculture, 303;
on revolution, 424;
on Socialist labor union policy,

352, 356 ;

on the policy of a Socialist govern-
ment, 433, 436 ;
on the class struggle, 279, 284-285;

327, 332 ;

Maurenbrecher, 246, 263, 264.
Mehring, Franz, 425.
Menger, Anton, 196, 232, 429.
Mill, John Stuart, 129.
Millerand, 122, 126, 132-134, 137,

248, 249, 393.
Milwaukee, 126, 176, 178-196; see

also Berger and Thompson.
Milwaukee Journal, The, 183, 184, 196.
Miners, Western Federation of, 366-

368.

Mine Workers, United, 349-351, 367.
Mitchell, John, 97, 336-338, 342-345,

357.

Modigliani, 142, 143.
Moody, John, 21.
Morgan, J. P., 18, 47.
Morley, Lord, 164.
Moyer, 368.

MUNICTPALIZATION, see "MUNICIPAL
SOCIALISM " and GOVERNMENT
OWNERSHIP.

"MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM," 161-163
175, 176, 182-184, 188-201.

Musatti, 144.

NATIONALIZATION, see GOVERNMENT
OWNERSHIP.

New Age, The, 1, 159, 160, 163.

New Yorker Volkszeitung, 189, 195,
331.

New York Evening Journal, The, 33-
35, 183.

New York Evening Post, The, 198.

New York Times, The, 195.

New York World, The, 183, 184.

New Zealand, 168 ; see also Austral-
asia.

Niel, 381.

Oklahoma, 319, 320.
Outlook, The, 202, 392, 397.
Owen, Senator, 202.

Panama Canal, 16, 17, 20.

Pannekoek, 292, 293.

Paris, see International Congresses.

Patten, Simon, 50, 51.

Pelloutier, 377.

Perkins, George W., 18, 47.

Philadelphia North American, The,

347.

Podrecca, 144.
Post, Louis F., 13, 14.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 99-105.

Quelch, 167.
Quessel, 264.

Rappaport, 133, 201, 216.
Reeves, William Pember, 70.
REVOLUTION, 231-247, 387-425; see

also CLASS STRUGGLE.
Rigola, 142.

Rockefeller, John D., 19, 63.
Roland-Hoist, Henriette, 389-391.
Roosevelt, Theodore :

on the social reform program, 1 ;

and on the economics of the New
Capitalism, 16, 18, 29-31 ;

on the politics of the New Capital-
ism, 36, 40 ;

INDEX

451

on the "State Socialist" labor

policy, 59, 63 ;
and compulsory arbitration, 79, 80,

82, 83 ;

on the class struggle, 281-284, 287 ;
on commission on Country Life,

309, 320 ;

on labor unions, 368, 373 ;
on government employees, 392,

396.

Root, Elihu, 18.
Rosebery, Lord, 10.
Ross, Edward A., 14, 36.
Russell, Charles Edward :

on compulsory arbitration, 76-78 ;
on the Labour Parties, 169-173 ;
on reformism, 177, 178;
on "State Socialism," 208-210.
Russia, 390, 414.

Saturday Evening Post, The, 97, 200.
Seidel, Mayor, 192, 193, 196.
Shaw, George Bernard :

on the social reform program, 2 ;

on the "State Socialist" labor
policy, 47 ;

on Socialism and democracy, 154,
155;

on social classes, 325-327 ;

on militarism, 410-412.
Shibley, George, 341.
Simons, A. M., 119, 120, 310, 316-

318, 322.

Singer, Paul, 255.
Sladden, Tom, 294, 332.
Snowden, Philip, 146, 152, 153, 164-

166.

Sombart, Werner, 243.
Spargo, John, 213, 434.
Steffens, Lincoln, 19, 20.
Stokes, Mrs. J. G. Phelps, 420.
Stokes, J. G. Phelps, 183, 184.
Stuttgart, see International Con-
gresses.

Survey, The, 64.
Sweet, Ada C., 420, 421.

Taft, William H., 16, 68, 79, 81, 98,

393.
TAXATION, 8, 12, 96, 114; see also

LAND QUESTION, MUNICIPAL

SOCIALISM, and GOVERNMENT

OWNERSHIP.

Temps (Paris), 132.

Thompson, Carl D., 122, 192, 193, 196.

Thorne, Will, 365.

Tillet, Ben., 356, 359, 365.

Tolstoi, 358, 401, 402.

TRADE UNIONS, see LABOR UNIONS.

Turati, 122, 140-145, 146.

UNEARNED INCREMENT, see LAND

QUESTION.

United States, labor unions in :
on compulsory arbitration, 81 ;
attitude to politics, 335-341 ;
attitude to class struggle, 341-347;
attitude to Socialist Party, 348-352 ;
and "industrial unionism," 355-

358, 366-375.

United States, the Socialist Party of :
"State Socialism" in, 62, 83 ;
reformism in, 122, 123, 126, 175-

209, 210-216, 238-242 ;
on social classes, 288, 298, 331-335 ;
on agricultural and land questions,

304-306, 309-323 ;
on labor unions, see United States,

labor unions in ;
the revolution in, 399, 401, 405,

408-410, 418-420.

United States, "States Socialism " in :
the social reform program, 13-31 ;
the politics of the New Capitalism,

16-31;

The Politics of the New Capital-
ism, 32-42;

the labor policy, 47, 48, 50-53, 59-65 ;
compulsory arbitration, 67-69, 80-

84;

equal " opportunity," 97-99 ;
the school question, 99-106 ;
"State Socialism " and the Socialist,

206-209.
Untermeyer, Samuel, 29.

Vaillant, Edouard, 138, 139.
Vandervelde, Emile :

on reformism, 139, 141, 146;

on agriculture, 301, 303, 317;

on the working class, 331 ;

on the policy of a Socialist govern-
ment, 434.

Viviani, 133, 134, 398.
Voice of Labour (Auckland, New Zea-
land), 168.

452

INDEX

Vorwaertt (Berlin), 10.

Walker, John, 350.
Wallace, Alfred Russell, 429.
Ward, Sir Joseph, 54.
Watterson, Henry, 425.
Webb, George H., 47.
Webb, Sidney :

on the social reform program, 2, 3 ;

on the "State Socialist" and labor
policy, 61 ;

on Socialism and individualism,

153-155, 159, 164.
Wells, H. G. :

"Is Socialism a movement or an
idea?" ix;

on the social reform program, 3 ;

on the "State Socialist" labor

policy, 62 ;

on British Socialism, 155-157, 159 ;
on social classes, 296, 325 ;
on the transition, 428.
Western Clarion, The (Vancouver),

332.

White, William Allen, 32.
Wilde, Oscar, 325.
Wilson, Stitt, 271.
Wilson, W. B., 67.
Wilson, Woodrow, 26-29, 31, 36, 40,

68, 283.

The Worker (Brisbane, Australia),
128.

Yvetot, 414.

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